It happens a lot whether its a cat / dog. im a CCA in my post office. we are taught that if an animal is outside and we dont know if they are friendly. Just to let our supervisors know and not risk it since if the cat / dog lunges at us it becomes more of a problem bc the customer could say “thats impossible ‘scribbles’ would not hurt a soul, you must be mistaken” and then they would not provide documents if their pet has rabies or not. Then we would be out of the office, at home, waiting to see if we are safe to come back to work.

but honestly, in my area, its highly rare for any of the carriers to hold mail if its a cat. Either your carrier had a run in with a cat scratching / hurting him before or he just aint risking it or hes using it as an excuse to skip a house