Dear Einstein,

I’m in trouble again. My owner says this time I’ve bitten off more than I could chew. When the neighborhood delinquent was in my yard the other day he bit me on the tail. I just returned the favor. My humans are all in an uproar about it.  Now I’m stuck in a little cage at the vet’s for 10 days. That brat is the one who should be locked up. What’s up?

A Yellow Tom Cat

Ol’ Yeller,

As Kipling says, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs,” you’ll have to go into quarantine. I think the humans are in an uproar about rabies.

Rabies has nothing to do with killer bees or Frisbees. It’s a fatal virus passed from animal to animal through bites. The official-types are worried that you may have passed it on to young Caligula. Since you’re probably up-to-date on your shots, it’s not likely. Most states require cat, dog and ferret who bites a human (hard enough to break the skin) to go into 10 day isolation at your owner’s expense, even if the bite was well-deserved as in your case.

Any mammal can get rabies but most of the time it shows up in wild carnivores, especially raccoons, skunks, foxes and bats. Unfortunately pusses and pooches can get it when we come fang to fur with those types. In the U.S., rabies has been reported in every state except Hawaii. So you surfer cats can stop reading and take a catnap. The rest of you, listen up.

Rabies is carried in spit and brains. That means if you weren’t vaccinated you could get it during a disagreement with an animal who’s infected. When it clamps down on you, he deposits a little slobber into the wound. And as they said in the old Brylcreem commercials, “A little dab a do you” in.

The brain-seeking virus targets the central nervous system—that’s the brain, nerves and spinal cord for you non-medical types—instead of the circulatory superhighway like most diseases. Upon arrival at its gray matter destination, the spit hits the fan.

Dogs and cats usually take from three to six weeks to start showing symptoms. In humans it’s usually one to three months. Early on, there aren’t any symptoms and it’s not contagious then, but when the virus arrives at the brain you’re in deep guano. Regardless whether you wear fur or curlers, once symptoms show up, you’re dead within 10 days. That’s why you have to stay in lockup for 10 days rather six days or six months. If you, the biter, don’t drop over dead during that time, you couldn’t have given the bitee rabies even if you were infected cuz the virus hasn’t made its ways to the saliva yet. Only when it has reached the brain and multiplied there does it take up residence in the salivary glands making you contagious. The bitee shouldn’t begin PEP vaccinations unless you develop signs of rabies during your quarantine. If you develop symptoms, then the human gets to get PEP-py.

But things get a lot more complicated if you get bitten by a wild animal. Those smart cats at the Center for Disease Controls say if you come into close contact with a bat or been bitten or scratched by a wild animal who can’t be tested, they consider you exposed to rabies, and should be tested for the disease. Owners who don’t like that option will have to see you on visiting days cuz you’re going into the slammer. How long you have to stay in at animal control or your vet’s office on your owner’s dime depends on whether or not you’re current on your shots. If you’re up-to-date you’ll get a rabies vaccination and go directly to jail for 45 days. If you’re unvaccinated or not current, you’ll become intimate with the inside that little cage for 6 months. And they’ll give you a series of shots to help you fight off the infection.

People who don’t want to bother with quarantine will have to have their pets tested for rabies. The up side of that is that they’re exempt from additional shots and going into isolation. You may think, “A rabies test doesn’t sound so bad.” After all, you survived a feline leukemia test.  It’s more complicated than that. Since up until last week they couldn’t do a rabies test on a live animal, you’d join the prestigious ranks of Marie Antoinette, Mary Queen of Scots and John the Baptist. Even if you test negative, you still lose your head. Since nobody knows how long it takes for symptoms to show up in wild animals, they can’t be held for observation. Bummer.

Humans are lucky dogs; after they’ve been bitten by a rabid animal, they can get Postexposure Prophylaxis (PEP) to fight off the disease.  They need to take the PEP as soon as possible, before symptoms appear. It takes six shots in either the arm or near the bite over 30 days. Back at the turn of the 20th Century, rabies increased the Heavenly choir by about 100 American voices a year. Now, it’s down to a couple. No human who has gotten PEP in time has assumed room temperature.

In the U.S., humans who bite the big one, didn’t get the post exposure shots. Why? Usually cuz they didn’t know they’d been bitten. You have to wonder if there’s a special kind of stupid not to know when an animal with long pointy teeth has punctured your skin. Unaware is a better description. They were bitten by those cute little flying mice. Bat infect more humans than any other animal cuz they have such tiny pearly whites may not hurt or leave a mark. A snoozing human might be clueless. In 2006 a Houston teenager woke up when a bat brushed against his face. Not realizing he’d been bitten, Zach Jones caught it in a towel and released it. A month later he became ill; he died a few days later.

In all of human history there have only been one, maybe two reported cases of people to catch full-blown rabies, and live to tell the tail. In 2004 15-year-old Jeanna Giese was bitten on the finger by a bat. Her mom washed it out with peroxide. Thirty-seven days later she developed a fever and muscle spasms. Her doc diagnosed her with rabies. Fortunately for her, they didn’t have to cut her head off. Instead he put her in a drug induced coma to protect her brain until her body could fight off the infection. After 31 days, Jeanna was declared rabies-free. Five years later she’s in college and thinking about becoming a vet. You can bet she’ll be a stickler about rabies shots.

Since then, docs have tried the “Jeanna Treatment” with all the humans assuming room temperature. Remember Zach Jones from Houston? He was one of them.

However there may be catnip at the end of the tunnel. In April, 2008, a kid in Colombia was bitten by a cat and reportedly got rabies. He survived the Jeanna Treatment. Later tests, (poor cat) show the kid may not have had rabies. But he did get a really good sleep. And in Brazil another kid survived, a November 2008 Reuters story claimed.

If a human gets pierced by a fur type (or bat), she should scrub the wound with soap and water for at least five minutes, then head off to the human vet. A really good handwashing, not to be confused with hand-wringing, is one of the most effective ways to remove rabies-ladened spit from the wound. 

It’s all about the spit. Scratches, scraps and other owies don’t count unless some of the wet stuff makes it into the wound. A human can’t get rabies by just petting an animal, even if he’s foaming at the mouth and wearing a sign that reads, “I Have Rabies.” Scratches don’t generally transmit the disease unless the animal was licking his paw right before he scratched you. In the words of O.J.’s lawyers, “If there ain’t spit, you must acquit.” It’s a bunch of bat guano if anyone tells you can get it from blood, pee or poop. And even dry spit is safe cuz rabies can’t live in dry environment. Under the right (or wrong) conditions rabies can be transmitted through aerosol. A couple of bat researchers in Texas caught the “Big R” while exploring a bat cave where hundreds of thousands of bats had been coughing and sneezing. The researchers inhaled the microscopic spit particles. They didn’t make it.

Both you and your humans would do well to avoid any animals who are acting odd: Wild animals who act friendly and move slowly. Nighttime critters like skunks or bats who add daytime appointments to their schedule. Friendly pets may snap or bite. In any animal (four and two-footed), changes in behavior, acting sick, drooling or having problems swallowing or aggression could be symptoms of rabies. An unprovoked attack is more likely than a provoked attack to be from a rabid animal. (Note to human: bites involving food or tail-biting aren’t considered provoked.)

Unvaccinated dogs and cats allowed to roam around outside are at highest risk to catch rabies—especially kitties cuz we’re often exempt from leash laws, and we can get into disagreements with wild animals when we leave the yard.

Wanna keep your head out of laboratory refrigerators? (It could take a while for the RAPID test to catch on.) Stay home and stay current. (I’m not talking about events.)

Start dominating some new territory—like the inside of the house away from wildlife with big teeth and active salivary glands. Besides, many of the same carnivores who would love to share their viral bounty with you, are the same ones who’d enjoy inviting you for dinner, as the main course.  If you still have to stay outdoors, you need to get a little plastic surgery. A properly placed body tuck should snip your desire to wander too far from home and stop unwanted litters at the same time.

And, of course stay current on your shots, even if you’re a strictly indoor kitty. Remember poor Josh. Vaccinations are more complicated than they used to be and I’ll cover them in my next column.

In the United States in 2001, there were 7,437 cases of rabies reported in animals. Most were in wild animals.  One case was reported in a human.

As you can see by this map, rabies is most common in the eastern United States.