From: Gaye
Dear Jessica, I am probably much too ignorant, but until I saw your recent HORSE-SENSE answer about vaccinations, I didn't even know that horses could get rabies. Does this happen often, and what are the signs? I know about wild animals acting aggressive or fearless, but is that what horses with rabies do? Is there a test we can do at home on saliva or urine? Not that I would know how to get a urine sample from a horse, but I know they do that at the racetrack so it must be possible. Also, do you know if one horse can give another horse rabies, or give it to a person? If a horse had rabies and bit a person, would the person get rabies? I don't think I would be brave enough to go to the doctor and get thirty shots in my stomach! Also, I remember something from grade school about if a dog has rabies they would cut off its head. Is that true, and would they do it to a horse? Why? It doesn't seem fair to punish the animal like that just for getting a disease!
This is probably too many questions to ask at once, but I see a lot of animals in the woods around our home, raccoons and skunks mostly but I hear coyotes at night sometimes, and I just never thought about my horses getting rabies. My dog and cat get a rabies vaccination every year. Should my horses get them too?
Worried near the woods, Gaye
Now, even though this is one question you DIDN'T ask, let me begin by saying that I was wrong in my previous e-mail; many horse owners CAN get prescriptions from their veterinarians and administer the rabies vaccine to their horses themselves. If your horse needs to be vaccinated against rabies, what matters is to get the horse vaccinated. Your vet will be able to tell you how and when to vaccinate your horse, and how to get the vaccine.
You are wise to be concerned, because rabies is a horrible disease, and yes, it can be transmitted to another horse or a human. Yes, by all means get your horses vaccinated. Your vet can tell you about the incidence of rabies in your area, and about the most likely vectors, but if your home is surrounded by woods and you know that there are raccoons and skunks and coyotes around, I should think you would want to get your horses protected as soon as you possibly can.
Even if you feel that you can't afford to have your veterinarian come out and vaccinate your horses - and I know that some people DO feel this way - at least call him or her and discuss which vaccinations your horses should be given and when they should be administered. Rabies is such a devastating disease, and there's no treatment for it, but it IS preventable.
Horses can get bitten by rabid wildlife in the same way that they can get bitten by snakes - the horse goes up to the strange animal and puts its head down and tries to investigate with its nose. Horses will run from things that they perceive to be threatening, but they are also full of curiosity, and if something does not appear to be threatening, they're likely to want to learn more about it, and that means approaching it and touching it, usually with the nose, and that's when the bite occurs. Horses aren't necessarily going to behave in ways that will make you think "oh-oh, rabies" - they may not show any behaviour changes at all. There was a confirmed case of rabies in a horse at a huge show in Tennessee just this last summer. Some huge number of people attended that show - some reports had the number of attendees at 150,000 - and you can just imagine how many of them were asking themselves "Did I see THAT horse? Did I touch THAT horse? Have I been exposed to rabies?" Fortunately for them, just seeing or touching or petting a rabid animal wouldn't cause them to contract the disease; the horse would have had to bite them or get its saliva on a cut in their skin, or get its saliva in their eyes or mouth or nose for them to be at serious risk. I'm sure that this horse's owners would not have brought him to the show if they had had ANY idea that he had contracted rabies! The horse had apparently shown no signs up til then. It developed clinical signs whilst it was AT the show, got worse over several days, and was euthanized. So - yes, it CAN happen. And with an incubation period that can range from a couple of weeks to many months, there's not much way to backtrack and say "THIS must have been when the horse was bitten" or "THAT must have been the animal that bit the horse."
What you remember from grade school is correct, and would apply to a horse as well as a dog. Cutting off the head had nothing at all to do with punishment. How could it? The dog was dead BEFORE its head was removed. The reason for removing it is to verify that the dog really does have rabies - the vets need to examine the animal's brain, because rabies affects brain tissue. It's much easier to transport just a head than to transport an entire animal carcass. Saliva CAN be tested, but only fairly late when the disease has taken hold... at which point the animal is already dying.
If a horse had rabies and bit a person, that person could get rabies. But the person could also get rabies from the horse WITHOUT being bitten! If a horse (or a dog) had rabies and licked the hand of a person who had a cut on her hand, that person could get rabies.
I'm not a vet or a doctor, and you should talk to both your vet and your doctor about rabies risks and cases in your area. But I can reassure you on one point. If you are bitten or licked by an animal that has or is suspected of having rabies, you will NOT have to suffer through a long series of abdominal injections. That IS what happened in the past, but nowadays the treatment is much easier: you would be given a shot of rabies immune globulin and a dose of rabies vaccine immediately, and then four more doses of rabies vaccine over the course of the next four weeks. Unlike the old, painful injections, these new ones are like flu shots - not painful, and given in your arm. Talk to your doctor if you have any doubts or any questions, but if you think you've been exposed to rabies, GO AND SEE YOUR DOCTOR so that you can begin treatment as soon as possible.
Jessica
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