Posted October 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am in Pet Health

Just For Being A Dog

I live in an heavily forested area in Northern Arizona, lots of animals about such as elk, javalina (wild pigs), and the smaller critters like skunks and such, and even a few rattlesnakes. Usually both animals and humans get along well, mostly by avoiding each other, but every now and then one of our pets gets into trouble with a wild creature.

While visiting the vet recently with Duke, my chocolate lab, getting him his annual rabies booster, we heard the most incredible howling and whimpering noises coming from the back of the vets office, obviously the sounds of a very unhappy dog. It turns out, from what the vets assistant told me, a Jack Russell Terrier, beloved pet of a resident got himself into a tussle with a skunk. The skunk lost the fight and the Jack Russell lost his freedom.

He killed the skunk but the owners did not know enough to preserve the body (or at least the head) so the brain could be tested for the presence of rabies. In the fight the little dog was bitten by the skunk and by the time they got back to retrieve the dead skunk the coyotes had done their work and nothing but a jaw bone remained.

So this little Jack Russell dog gets sentenced to pet prison for six months by the authorities because:
#1 their house dog was not vaccinated against rabies.
#2 they were not educated about what to do when a dog gets into a fight with a wild animal and is bitten.

The moral of this story is get your dog vaccinated for rabies and keep up on the boosters, even if they spend 99.9% of their time indoors they still must go outdoors to do their business. That's all the time it takes for an animal like a skunk to invade their territory, and the fight will be on. If your dog or pet is bitten by an animal during a fight to the death, wrap the carcass in a plastic garbage bag so it can be tested for rabies.

jail dressed dog This little guy sits in a 3 X 6 kennel and no one but the vets assistants and the vet himself can go near him. They have been vaccinated against rabies themselves. The owners have lost their dog for six months minimum and maybe forever if in fact that skunk had rabies. A six month quarantine of a dog is a killer for the dog and the owners.