Another rabies case puts people and their pets on high alert

April 29, 2012|by Jim Grawe

(WICHITA, Kan.) — Irene Sellers has nothing to fear from her dogs.

"That was the first thing I had done when I got these two animals--I had them vaccinated," Sellers says.

She learned through family experience that rabies is nothing to take lightly.

"My mother had rabies shots," Sellers says. "She had 18 shots in her stomach."

In that case, it was a puppy. The most recent case in Kansas is a horse from the Leon area diagnosed by veterinarian Davy Harkins.

"The owner noticed the horse was wobbly out in the pasture, (she) went out to get it, (and) it bit her," Harkins says.

Dr. Harkins says this only the second time in his 40-year career he's seen a rabid horse.

Some believe the mild winter had something to do with it, but rabies in Kansas have skyrocketed this year. There are already 20 confirmed cases--that's about three times more than this time last year.

"Rabies is something that needs to be taken very seriously," the Kansas Humane Society's Jennifer Campbell says. "It is a fatal disease."

Campbell says it's crucial that pet owners have their animals vaccinated and are aware of what's going on around them.

Thanks to vaccinations and local laws requiring them, rabies in pets isn't near the problem it used to be. Only six of the 20 cases this year have been domestic animals. But the only prevention for people is to be careful.

"Be careful around any wild animal that doesn't appear wild," Dr. Harkins says. "Definitely be careful around anything that's aggressive that doesn't normally act that way."

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