Rabies question?

joce

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#1
This has been bugging me since I read it so have to ask.

I have seen several times were a dog bit a vet employee or a person out in the public with no documented rabies shot and the dog was just kept in querentine ten days.

Someone on a horse forum who works at a a vet clinic go bit and said police were involved and they removed the head, it was gory, and they tested themselves. Ummm. Ok. Owners were upset. No mention of dog foaming at the mouth or anything.

doesn't a state lab do the testing.

So I your dog bit someone at a vets office and was a day overdue for rabies. . . Off with his head? I know this is not my vets policy. I wonder now if I foster again I should call ahead first!
 

Brattina88

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#2
This has always been almost like a "threat" / warning to me. My two are on a limited vaccination protocol, no problems. Except for that rabies - as required by law. I'm frustrated, I think its overkill, Maddie has had it on time every single time and she's 10 now, I really don't think its necessary. Most likely (fingers crossed) she won't need any other vaccinations for the rest of her life. But I still take her out in public and such, so I was warned that if she bit somebody that could happen to her. :mad:
 

Fran101

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#3
Rabies law and boston dog registration tags are TOUGH around here.
If your dog has no rabies shot/an expired tag and bites someone.. you are looking at quarantine.

BUT no way does the vet do it! The dog is impounded at animal control..where she/he is quarantined and, if necessary, off with the head testing takes place.

I didn't even think vets were allowed to do that kind of thing without a/c getting involved.

I am on limited vax protocol with the animals.. but we do rabies on time like clockwork, the risk is just too great. My heart couldn't even deal with the quarantine.
 

elegy

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#4
Depends where you live and on the people involved, mostly.

A dog cannot transmit rabies more than ten days before the rabies virus kills the dog. After it gets into the salivary glands, I guess, it's curtains within that specific timeframe. But then if the dog does die and it does turn out to be rabid, the person who was bitten is x number of days into their own infection with a generally incurable disease.

But really, how often does that happen?

It seems very odd to me that police would get involved with a bite that happened to a vet tech, unless it happened outside of the clinic or unless, for example, it happened while the dog was being put to sleep. Bites in a vet clinic are generally considered "provoked" just by the dog being in the vet clinic.
 

Sweet72947

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#5
According to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/usa/surveillance/index.html):

In this century, the number of human deaths in the United States attributed to rabies has declined from 100 or more each year to an average of 2 or 3 each year. Two programs have been responsible for this decline. First, animal control and vaccination programs begun in the 1940's and oral rabies vaccination programs in the 2000's have eliminated domestic dogs as reservoirs of rabies in the United States. Second, effective human rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins have been developed.
Rabies in dogs and cats is extremely rare because of our extensive vaccination protocols. Yes I agree that once a year vaccs are too much (in my area we are required to get vaccs every three years), but in our wildlife population there is a very HIGH incidence of rabies, especially in raccoons, foxes and bats. Stop vaccinating pet cats and dogs, rabies will resurface in our pet population.
 

BostonBanker

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#6
I am on limited vax protocol with the animals.. but we do rabies on time like clockwork, the risk is just too great. My heart couldn't even deal with the quarantine.
Same here. It is the one I won't skip/titer. In our area, titers are generally allowed even for rabies, but I travel so much, I don't want to risk being somewhere else and having something happen.

When I was an animal control officer, the deal if a dog broke skin without a current rabies was 10 days of quarantine assuming there were no obvious signs that the dog was sick. If the owners were clearly very responsible, an in-home quarantine was permitted (dog does not leave your property, dog only steps outside on leash for potty breaks). More often than not, the dog was sent to the kennel we had a contract with for that time frame.

No dog was euthanized for it without showing signs of illness (which never happened in my 2 years of work).
 

Kat09Tails

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#7
Sending dogs/cats in for rabies testing is my Dad's job with the health dept actually and he actually does use a vet for euthanizing and then removing the dog/cat head. The rules for this being required does vary state to state - and sometimes even county to county.

Dogs are pretty uncommon to send in but feral cats and pigs among domestics tend to be way more common. Wildlife that is pretty frequent are bats and raccoons but he has sent in deer that just didn't seem right.

Much on how a dog could end up getting it's head removed could be from other factors like:
Behavior changes in the dog
Is the dog sick
Has the dog ever had a rabies shot
Is the dog exposed to wildlife frequently
Is the owner sketchy
Can the county or owner afford quarantine costs
 

elegy

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#8
Man, I saw a really really good map not too long ago that tracked both number of animals tested and number of positives in the US in... 2010? 2011? I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
 

joce

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#10
Yeah, I never heard of a dog being torn out of an owners arms showing no symptoms and being killed for testing. Especially for a bite in a clinic. It happens. You go to a clinic cuz your due for rabies shot.

I know we took care of my cousins goats years ago and a fox was in he barn almost dead. Because they boarder the park the ranger came and later we found out it had rabies.

I do rabies because I never want to worry about it if someone comes knocking. I know the next county over they do check.
 
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#11
It depends on the state laws and the people involved. In many states, the bitten person can opt for either the quarantine or euthanasia/testing. So many people choose the quarantine but they can force the issue testing if they're bitten (in some states).

It depends a bit on where someone is bitten, too. The virus travels through the nervous system to the brain. If you are bitten, for example, on a hand or foot you have time to wait for that 10 day quarantine to be up because it will take longer than that to reach the brain. So even if they aren't showing symptoms at the time of the bite, if an animal is shedding virus at the time of the bite it will start showing progressively worse symptoms in plenty of time to still get treated, well before the virus has reached the brain. If you get bitten somewhere closer - say on the face or shoulder, you may not really have that luxury.

Also, pre-exposure vaccination for rabies varies a lot among veterinary professionals. All of our doctors are vaccinated, but a few of our technicians have chosen not to be, and I don't think any of our reception staff is. So if I get bitten I really don't worry about it too much, ever, for myself.

Seems weird that the clinic tested it themselves, though. I always thought an official state lab had to test them as well.
 
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#12
Yeah, I never heard of a dog being torn out of an owners arms showing no symptoms and being killed for testing. Especially for a bite in a clinic. It happens. You go to a clinic cuz your due for rabies shot.
About 5 yrs ago, I was working at a vet clinic where animal control actually came into the clinic and removed a dog because of rabies exposure.

Long story short, it was a large mastiff type dog, an adult. I believe never had a rabies shot. It killed a raccoon in the owners yard. The raccoon tested possitive for rabies. Animal control gave the owner a certain amount of time to bring the dog into them to be put down. They didn't bring the dog in. Instead they brought the dog into our clinic to get vaccinated (leaving out the part about it killing a rabid raccoon). Can't remember exactly how animal control found the dog, but I was there when they showed up to take the dog away.

Several years ago we had a lot of wildlife test possitive or rabies in this area, was always on the news. Fox, raccoon and bats mostly. There was actually a story of a rabid fox attacking a girl in some store parking lot. Anyway.... because of that, I always keep the dogs rabies current. Don't want to risk it!
 

elegy

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#13
We had a dog... maybe a year ago? Vaccinated once as a puppy but not vaccinated in 6+ years. Tangled with a coon, had bite wounds, coon tested positive for rabies. We did some sort of protocol of vaccinations (I think a total of three) for the dog and the dog was quarantined to the owner's property for six months.

Not sure that I'd have been brave enough to keep a dog in that situation, but it all turned out ok in the end.
 

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