Since I turned an grownup, the record of issues that I really feel pretty assured won’t ever occur to me has grown with every passing yr: I’ll by no means win the lottery (I don’t purchase tickets) or change into a well-known archaeologist (dreamed however by no means educated), however neither will I die whereas skydiving (nobody could make me skydive) or have to fret about rabies.
After I was younger, rabies was a giant concern — as a baby I used to be warned, repeatedly, to by no means method an odd canine if I didn’t need to endure the excruciating ache of dozens of injections, delivered by a footlong needle, proper in my abdomen. After I first noticed the scene in “To Kill a Mockingbird” by which Atticus shoots a mad canine, I may solely hope my very own father would be capable of do the identical.
However by the Nineteen Seventies, because the canine rabies vaccine turned broadly out there and more and more necessary, that scene and all its implications slipped towards the anachronistic.
Till my husband discovered considered one of our canine gazing down at a grounded bat on our again patio the opposite evening.
To be sincere, our first response was dog-owner chagrin. Harley is a rescue hound, of indeterminate however clearly combined breed, who’s given to leaping within the air to snap at moths and making useless however enthusiastic makes an attempt to catch lizards. My husband’s assumption that Harley had introduced down this bat appeared questionable — the canine by no means truly catches the moths — however my sympathy was positively with the bat, which appeared shocked.
Being very cautious to not contact it, my husband moved the squeaking critter to a dog-free zone, within the hopes it will simply flap away. Alas, it was useless the following morning. (Right here is the place I admit our first mistake — we should always have merely put a field or bucket over the bat and known as animal management.)
Harley is in quarantine for 30 days after an encounter with a rabid bat.
(Mary Mcnamara / Los Angeles Occasions)
As luck would have it, Harley had a vet appointment that very day, and so I casually talked about the bat. The vet didn’t truly freeze, however she actually used a really no-nonsense voice when she requested: “Did you bring the bat? We need the bat.”
In fact they wanted the bat. Why hadn’t I believed to carry the bat? I stay within the foothills the place bear, bobcat and mountain lion sightings break up the tedium of coyote and raccoon encounters. I do know that bats are potential rabies carriers, but one way or the other I didn’t join this with my very own yard.
I felt very silly, particularly when the vet knowledgeable me that, although solely a small share of bats carry the illness, various have been present in close by Burbank and Glendale. A fast Google search revealed the L.A. County rabid bat map, which, on that day, listed 33 contaminated bats encountered throughout this yr alone.
I (once more very rigorously) introduced the bat to the vet’s workplace, which in flip shipped it to the county’s public veterinary well being division. Extra, and more and more panicked, on-line analysis reacquainted me with the horror of the illness, which is just about 100% deadly in all unvaccinated canine and people unvaccinated people who don’t obtain remedy earlier than changing into symptomatic — simply final yr, a Fresno girl died from rabies after being bitten by a bat that she was making an attempt to take away from her classroom.
Additionally its historical past. Seems, rabid-dog assaults have been a reasonably large downside in L.A. till the Southern California Veterinary Medical Assn. started providing public vaccination clinics in 1958. Based on the county public well being web site, the final regionally acquired an infection in a canine occurred 10 years later.
Vaccinations work; what an idea.
Harley, who just lately turned 1, was already updated on all his pictures — the journey to the vet had been to get the following spherical, together with a rabies booster. The vet, after which a really good physician with the county, reassured me that even when the bat turned out to be contaminated, there was just about no likelihood of Harley getting sick.
I additionally discovered that even an unvaccinated canine, or cat, could be protected if they’re vaccinated shortly after an encounter with an animal carrying rabies.
So when the bat outcomes got here again constructive — there at the moment are 37 encounters listed on the map, together with ours and three different new ones — I didn’t collapse in worry that my beloved canine would die.
“Out of an abundance of caution,” (the county official’s phrases) we’re required to maintain Harley in quarantine from different canine (besides his greatest buddy Koda, our border collie combine who’s additionally in lockdown) for 30 days. Throughout this time we should always monitor him for signs and provides him a great deal of hugs as a result of he’s the perfect canine ever, and we couldn’t bear to lose him. (OK, that final bit just isn’t a part of the official protocol, however we’re doing it anyway.)
We additionally needed to fill out a number of varieties and ship in copies of his vaccination certificates in addition to his photograph. The county shortly distributed leaflets all through the neighborhood, warning residents {that a} rabid bat had been discovered close to the cross streets of our home and offering info of what to do in the event you discover an ailing or useless bat in or close to your home. (Which is how I discovered that we should always have coated the poor factor with a field or bucket and known as animal management.)
All of this raised my private nervousness degree however was usually reassuring: L.A. County could be very severe about stopping a resurgence of rabies.
With vaccinations of every kind presently underneath siege, together with amongst pet homeowners, I provide this story as a reminder: Rabies, like many different horrible ailments, nonetheless exists and might seem in your life while you least count on it.
My children have by no means apprehensive about assembly up with mad canine (or whether or not their father would be capable of shoot them) as a result of they, and we, are privileged to stay in a time when science has eradicated a deadly risk that was ubiquitous lower than 60 years in the past.
That luxurious has, I worry, made us forgetful. Simply because the success of different vaccines has lulled too many individuals to falsely consider that they needn’t worry measles or COVID-19 or, God assist us, polio, the lengthy absence of rabies gave me a false sense of safety. I didn’t view that bat as a peril till I used to be reminded, by medical professionals and authorities officers, to take action.
In different phrases, I had by no means personally encountered rabies so I believed I by no means would. After which I did.
Perhaps I ought to begin shopping for lottery tickets.
