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The rabies vaccine for dogs is extremely effective. Vaccinated dogs don't get rabies. But some people don't vaccinate their dogs. How many anti-vaxers are there in the USA? If they don't vaccinate their kids, they might not vaccinate their dogs.
Unfortunately this is becoming more common. What these anti-vax pet owners don’t get is that rabies vaccination of animals is done first and foremost to protect people from the disease; any benefit to the animal is secondary. And the only way to 100% confirm or refute the possibility of rabies in an unvaccinated animal that is acting oddly is to cut the animal’s head off and examine the brain. That’s a much bigger hazard to their pet’s health than the rabies vaccine!
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There are pools of rabies in wildlife: raccoons in the east, foxes in the west, and bats everywhere. It's not unusual for dogs to be exposed to wildlife.
Yes. The only rabies- free place in the US is Hawaii. ALL domestic animals should be vaccinated against rabies, no exceptions! Worldwide, between 50,000 and 60,000 people each year still die from this disease. Prior to the 1960s, around 100 people a year died from rabies here in the US. It’s an ugly death, and we don’t want to see it coming back because we got lax with vaccinating our domestic animals.
We have indoor cats that never go outside, but they all receive their rabies vaccines and distemper as well as an annual checkup at the vet's office. Our next door neighbor feeds feral and stray cats. (Don't even get me started on that.) Hubby and I worry about bringing diseases in to our cats, even though it's unlikely.
Plus, if one of our cats scratches or bites a visitor who is annoying him or her, we want to be able to prove immediately that a series of rabies shots at our expense is not necessary.
Too many people have a household of cats they don't take care of properly, including spaying and neutering. They feed them and let them roam the neighborhood.
It turned out that the cat that bit me had an owner who had never gotten it vaccinations of any kind. They weren’t anti-vaxxers, just thoughtless and lazy. They kept the cat outdoors all the time. We had and probably still have rabid bats in the area.
I was fearful even before I encountered the cat. My husband had jury-rigged our internet connection to come in through an open window in my bedroom — plenty of room for a bat to get in. I called a handyman to come and run the cable through the wall instead.
People in this country have been bitten by rabid bats while they slept. Apparently the bites aren’t obvious.
You’re a responsible pet owner, Javacoffee. Unfortunately those people who are not (including those who feed feral or stray cats without getting them immunized for rabies and spayed/neutered) are putting everyone elase at risk.
In most of the less-developed world dogs roam freely just as cats too often do here, and many if not most of those dogs are not immunized against rabies. Most people worldwide who die from rabies got it from a dog bite, and control efforts in developing countries are focused on getting as many dogs in the local communities immunized as possible in the hope of stopping the dog-to-dog infection cycle that keeps rabies present in those countries. (Interestingly, in many of those countries rabies is rare in the local wildlife populations. No one understands why.)
did no one ask her if she had been out of the country?
Not a single person who knew she HAD and said nothing when she got sick?
Even if her doctors had been told right away that she’d been traveling in the Philippines a few weeks earlier, they might not have immediately thought of rabies as a possibility. The initial symptoms of human rabies are sufficiently vague that the disease can be confused with a lot of other, more treatable conditions. Remember, to most Norwegians (including most doctors) rabies isn’t “real” as they’ve never seen a case in an animal, much less a person. It’s always easier to diagnose diseases that are common where you live, as you’re quicker to consider them as a possibility.
Anyway, once this young woman began to show symptoms she was doomed. Only a handful of people have ever survived rabies, even with the best treatments available. It’s essentially 100% fatal. That’s why prevention is so important!
I kind of wonder if the "puppy" was actually that cute and innocent looking. I thought a lot of Asian countries have a problem with feral dogs running around because there are even fewer people who get their pets spayed or neutered and that there’s cultural belief that dogs are sacred(??).
It's a good idea to get the shots if you go a country with rabies, especially if you think it likely you may interact with animals. And then go for the post-exposure shots if you are bitten. Doesn't matter if rabies isn't common in your home country; you're not in Kansas anymore.
Last time I went to my local Travel and Immunization Clinic (which WAS in Kansas!) there was a family with 3 little boys who were being given preventative immunizations against rabies because the family was going to be in Africa for an extended period. I didn't know such a thing existed; I was there for pills to prevent malaria.
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