Well, this is scary - rabies in my area - in HUMANS!

I don't know if this link will work, but if you live in Central Oklahoma or know someone who does, you might want to try to read this?

Unity has seen 10 patients with possible rabies exposure - Shawnee, OK - The Shawnee News-Star


Make sure your critters are all vaccinated, and teach your kids to NEVER approach a strange animal - especially one that looks ill or is not behaving normally. I'm the world's worst about petting the neighbor's dogs when they come to visit, and I have no idea if they've been vaccinated or not. Guess it's a habit I'd better break...and pronto!

Wow, that is scary!
I have an aunt who lives in Tulsa, which I checked and found it is about an hour away from Shawnee. Not too sure if this will affect her but I will make sure she knows about this as she has many little kids running around as well as household pets.
Thanks for the warning, and stay safe!

I have 5 grandkids living with me - along with about 20 barn cats. Fortunately, the cats have all been vaccinated. But I'm terrified that a sick skunk or raccoon will show up and one of the grandkids will feel sorry for it and pick it up. Or a stray dog shows up that is not obviously sick and the kids pet it...one never knows...

Make sure you vaccinate your horses! There is an 100% death rate on unvaccinated horses who get rabies!

We have my mare and daughter's mare vaccinated. Daughter is arranging for a farm call for the other three. They won't load. (Going to have to work on that!)

The death rate is 100% in any animal that gets rabies.... There have been a few cases recently of humans who were thought to be exposed to a rabid animal and given the proper medications and they lived and one 9 year old girl who was diagnosed with rabies and lived.
I still , to this day, do not understand why people neglect to vaccinate any animal they own for rabies.

I agree - vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. If you have too many animals (barn cats are what come to mind) you may be able to get the vaccine and do it yourself a little cheaper, but at least they'd be vaccinated. The three horses that we need to have vaccinated were vaccinated last year. Hopefully, since it's only been 11 months, they will still be protected until the vet can get out here. Needless to say, he's swamped right now with panicked animal owners...

(We even vaccinated our cattle when we had them back in the day)

There is a 100% fatally rate with HUMANS as soon as symptoms show. And...most human cases of rabies are caused by BAT bites. Which is scary because most people never know they are bitten by a bat because the puncture wounds are tiny and not very painful. So if you are sleeping (or drunk etc) and get bit and don't realize (and don't get the shots for it).... and then two weeks later you get symptoms that turn out to be rabies symptoms... there's literally nothing they can do.

Which is super scary!
So... stray dogs and cats are *usually* the least of your worries. Because if you get bitten by one of them you go and get the "emergency" shots.

I can't source any of this... I work at an animal shelter and this was just the info we've been given. (We also all get rabies shots for free) ... which is good because theres no quick test to find out if the animal that just bit you has rabies. They have to chop off its head and test it's brain.

Not trying to freak anyone out! But if you have reason to believe you're at a high risk to catch it... I would look into the vaccine.

Ooh, yes, thank you for reminding me. Mine are due for their shots....

Glad I am able to do them myself, a farm call for 15 horses, 17 dogs, and 2 cats would get expensive quick. LOL.

Thank goodness Australia is so far away from everywhere! We don't have rabies here. Hope everyone's four legged friends stay safe