Ask Your Doctor About Getting a Rabies Shot

Our Carpathian Shepherd, Jesse Lou Bagget, has Lyme disease again. He’s a tick magnet even with Front Line preventative, and the unseasonably balmy autumn seems to be accompanied by a bumper crop of ticks. Our dog walker has had two serious bouts of Lyme this year alone with a gangrenous lesion on his leg. I was vaccinated a few years ago. I figured that I was at as much as the dogs since I accompanied them on all their hikes and occasionally got tick bites myself. Wm Jasper Stone, our Salopian Terrier, almost never gets ticks, and he was vaccinated against Lyme when we first got him from the dog gulag. He spends a lot of time in the pond, so he might be drowning them. Mr Baggett is also prone to nesting in piles of leaves or tall grass, something Mr Stone never does.

We live in a forest, and I can’t see myself going about in long pants and long sleeves in the summer, so I am going to be bitten by ticks. Mrs Vache Folle probably ought to get vaccinated, but she instead dresses in tick deterrent clothing when she takes the dogs up the mountain.

My dogs are required by law to be vaccinated for rabies. The state wouldn't require this if it weren't an enormous risk, would it? Since I am so frequently with them and have about as much risk as they do of getting bitten by a rabid critter (being taller, I’m a better target for the bats), why doesn’t my doctor insist on my getting vaccinated for rabies? I’ve never heard of anyone other than nonhumans getting a rabies vaccine. I reckon getting rabies would suck way more than having Lyme, what with the foaming at the mouth and biting people and the death spiral. Why doesn't the state insist that all children get rabies shots? Kids are likely to play with the friendly rabid skunk or coon and become infected. Kids also bite. We are in danger every time we come near an unvaccinated child.

How can you tell if a person has rabies? He may be unusually friendly and approachable. Don’t fall for it lest you let down your guard and be bitten.