Rabies

Dogs, ferrets, cats, and other pets should have their Rabies Vaccinations and issued tags readily available.   Meet with your veterinarian to ensure your pet has all needed and required vaccinations.

How can you tell if an animal has rabies?

You can’t tell if an animal has rabies by just looking at it. The only way to know for sure if an animal (or a person) has rabies is to perform laboratory testing. However, animals with rabies may act strangely. Some may be aggressive and try to bite you or other animals, or they may drool more than normal. (This is sometimes shown in movies as animals “foaming at the mouth.”) But not all animals with rabies will be aggressive or drooling. Other animals may act timid or shy, move slowly or act tame, or let you get close to them. Because that’s not the way wild animals usually act, you should remember that something could be wrong. Some animals may not appear ill. For the health and safety of wildlife, your pets, and yourself, leave wild animals alone, including baby animals.

The best thing to do is to never feed or approach a wild animal. Be careful of pets that you do not know. If you see a stray dog or cat, don’t pet it. This is especially important if you are traveling in a country where rabies in dogs is common. And if any animal is acting strangely, call your local animal control officer for help. Some things to look for are:

1. general sickness
2. problems swallowing
3. excessive drool or saliva
4. an animal that is overly aggressive
5. an animal that bites at imaginary objects (sometimes called “fly biting”)
6. an animal that appears tamer than you would expect
7. an animal that’s having trouble moving or may even be paralyzed
8. a bat that is on the ground

What should be done when a potentially rabid animal bites someone?

Thoroughly clean the wound immediately with soap and water to reduce the likelihood of rabies transmission. Call your doctor as soon as possible for advice. Your doctor can consult with the Georgia Poison Center (404‐616‐9000 in Atlanta, or 800‐222‐1222 statewide) or the Epidemiology Branch (404‐657‐2588) to decide whether post‐exposure human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) and vaccine are recommended for this bite. Your doctor can also tell you if you need a tetanus booster or antibiotics for the bite wound.

Provide your doctor with the following information:

1. Type of animal involved (i.e., pet or wild animal)
2. Provoked (e.g., teased, startled, run past) or unprovoked attack
3. Type of exposure (i.e., bite, scratch, licking of an open wound), part of the body, and number of exposures
4. Animal’s rabies vaccination status (does not apply to wild animals)
5. Sick or well animal and type of symptoms
6. Animal available/not available for testing or quarantine

What should happen to the animal if it bites someone?

Under certain circumstances a domestic animal may be placed under 10‐day quarantine and observed to see if it develops symptoms of rabies. Cats, dogs, ferrets, and pets will become ill and expire within days of shedding the rabies virus in their saliva (the time of the bite.)

If the animal is wild or stray it should be humanely destroyed and the brain should be sent for testing. Contact Environmental Health Department can provide assistance with quarantine or rabies testing of animals that have bitten you. Physicians and veterinarians and/or the Epidemiology Branch should be consulted about bites from livestock.