Not many days go by when I don’t get a few calls about rabies. Here are a couple from yesterday that highlight some important issues.
An indoor cat tangled with a bat. The bat’s no longer around to test so this is considered a potential rabies exposure (bats being important rabies vectors, and catching and
Let’s put this one in the "smart people doing stupid things" file.
Some well-intentioned people at Washington University in St. Louis thought they’d help relieve stress during exam time by bringing in a petting zoo – that unfortunately included "Boo Boo" the biting bear. As you can likely guess, problems ensued.
18 students sustained
A recent rabies death in a Russian man highlights multiple screw-ups that led to the man’s death.
A 50-year-old man in Smolino Kovvrosko, Russia was bitten by his cat at the end of February.
A few questions were sent in by a reader regarding a recent post about rabies in a Texas animal shelter. They’re good ones so I thought I’d cover them here.
I’m a little confused by this. Weren’t these shelter dogs vaccinated?
A single rabid animal has lead to plans to euthanize 40 dogs at a Texas animal shelter. It’s very similar to a situation I discussed with vet students recently, and it’s one that raises a lot of emotions.
The brief version…one rabid dog was identified in the shelter.
There’s been some controversy in the past regarding allowing pets to sleep in or on the bed. I don’t get too worked up about it, since I think it’s very low-risk in terms of disease transmission for most pets and households, but a variety if reasons for prohibiting this practice have been given.
I haven’t
A female Corgi was presented to a Parker County, Texas veterinary clinic and subsequently diagnosed with rabies. Presumably, the dog was exhibiting neurological signs, died or was euthanized, and the veterinarian made sure the dog was tested for rabies (something that could become more complicated in Canada now that the CFIA has inexplicably dumped
Rabies in horses is pretty rare but far from unheard of, and each case should be a reminder of the need for proper vaccination. The latest US case was a horse in Newport, New York, but I haven’t yet been able to track down more details. Presumably, human and animal contacts are being investigated, with
For an almost invariably fatal disease, people sometimes take a surprisingly lax approach to rabies prevention. Much attention is paid to vaccination of pets (well, not by everyone, but it’s pretty good) – and that’s great, but sometimes people do a better job of vaccinating their dogs than themselves. It’s not because they care about
Over the past few years, I’ve written a lot of posts on this blog. Hopefully the odd one’s been interesting and/or informative, and in the spirit of recycling (not laziness!) I’m going to re-post some that I thought were memorable or of particular interest.
The first one is actually the second post ever on this site
