Te Puke postie and big puppy's bond goes viral

A video of the special bond between a Te Puke postie and a german shepherd puppy has amassed more than half a million views.

Usually, stories about dogs and posties are of the more toothy kind, but in this case, 9-month-old puppy Kyza has become close friends with his local postie Steve Hennum.

Every day, the pup greets Mr Hennum at the gate and jumps up to get a friendly rub from his buddy.

Kyza's owner Michael Collins, who is off work after surgery, witnessed the bond between the two and decided to film one of their daily greetings.

He posted the video on his Facebook page on Monday lunchtime and by 4pm yesterday, the original video had been seen by 560,000 people. It has also amassed thousands of views on other sites.

"It has taken off," Mr Collins said. "It wasn't what I was expecting.

"We've noticed for a while that every time the mail man comes down the road, mail or not, he will stop and give Kyza a pat. I thought I'd give him credit, there's so much on the news about bad dogs and the whole stereotype of posties and dogs are challenged in this video."

Mr Hennum said he was surprised by how much attention the video had received.

"It's a little bit out of the ordinary, this sort of attention is normally for bad things happening with posties and dogs, so it's a little bit unusual."

He said he had known Kyza since he was a little puppy.

"It can be the highlight of his day sometimes, I think. He's obviously quite happy in the video, wagging his tail.

"Not all dogs are nice like that, it's definitely on a case-by-case basis. He's juts a really special dog and he has got such a cool nature. He's worth making the time for."

Mr Hennum did not know about the video until a friend sent him a text message, by which time it had already been seen by thousands of people.

"Who knew that patting a dog could be so interesting?"

NZ Post Bay of Plenty regional delivery manager Dean Horsup said office staff had fallen in love with the video.

"We love the video - obviously posties, who are out on the street a lot, do have issues with roaming or aggressive dogs from time to time and we train our staff to treat all dogs with caution.

"However, in this case, it's very clear these two are great friends. We've had quite a few 'awwww' moments in the office."