Rabies Facts and Myths
The Truth About Rabid Dogs and Animals
Rabies myths have created confusion about one of the world’s most frightening diseases. Just hearing the word rabies, conjures up images of foaming, aggressive dogs and animals. It’s nearly impossible not to picture the movie, Old Yeller, and the young boy forced to shoot his beloved rabid dog that suffered with the disease.
Rabies is, indeed, a potentially deadly virus that should be taken seriously. But, the rabies virus has been shrouded in myths for so many years; it’s hard to know what the real rabies facts are. Below, are signs that you may be dealing with a potential rabid animal.
What is The Rabies Virus?
Rabies virus is an acute viral infection of the brain or ‘encephalitis’. The virus’s habit is to use the central nervous system, and travel along the peripheral nerves to the brain. If the disease establishes it’s self in the brain, the virus is usually irreversible as well as fatal. After receiving a bite or a scratch, the incubation period is twenty to ninety days for a symptom to appear.
This incubation period depends on the individual situation:
- The severity of the bite, cut or scratch.
- A person’s age – children show signs faster.
- The location of the bite on the body - incubation is shorter for bites around the head, neck, and hands than on the lower extremities.
Rabies Manifests in Two Ways
- The first pattern is paralytic rabies. Often this one is referred to as ‘dumb’ rabies.
- The second pattern shows it’s self as ‘furious’ rabies, and is prone to aggression and biting.
Rabies Myths And Rabies Facts
- Myth: A dog doesn’t have rabies if he acts friendly.
- Fact: An infected dog can have any number of mood changes due to the rabies virus. A normally aggressive dog could suddenly act friendly, and the reverse is true. Also, an animal can transmit the disease before showing any clinical signs.
- Myth: A rabid dog or animal with rabies shows fear of water.
- Fact: People infected with rabies get painful spasms when trying to drink, which leads to ‘hydrophobia’ (fear of water). Animals don’t have these spasms, and may drink all they want.
- Myth: A rabid animal froths at the mouth.
- Fact: Not always. Only the animals with the paralytic rabies will salivate continually due to jaw muscles being paralyzed. Paralytic rabies is present in about 20% of rabies cases. The other 80% won’t have this symptom.
- Myth: A rabid animal will be vicious and snap at everything.
- Fact: Only the animal with the ‘furious’ type of rabies is likely to act this way.
- Myth: Skunks are the number one rabies carrier.
- Fact: In the United States, according to the ASRR, raccoons have the largest number of rabies cases in a species. Due to militant vaccination practices with dogs, rabies has become predominantly a wildlife problem. However, world-wide, unvaccinated dogs are the number one transmitters of the disease.
More Rabies Facts
"Rabies is a viral disease that affects the central nervous system of all warm-blooded animals," says, Dr. David L Personett, a veterinarian based in Melbourne Beach, Florida.
- Rabies is not transmittable by blood, urine, or feces. It’s only contracted by saliva coming into contact with a cut skin by a bite, scratch, or other wounds.
- Due to their low body temperature, opossums are extremely resistant to rabies. Hissing, drooling, and shaking are normal forms of defense for these mammals.
- A raccoon, skunk, or fox seen out and about in the daytime is not necessarily infected with rabies.
- Once the symptoms of rabies appear in any mammal, the disease is fatal.
- The rabies virus is preventable through a series of vaccinations.
- In the United States, only 2-3 people die each year from rabies.
Rabies myths once encouraged fear and ignorance in the general public. Understanding rabies facts will help people make intelligent, informed decisions when mingling with domestic or wild animals.
Related Reading
Interested in reading more on the rabies virus? Check out Rabies: Prevention, Symptoms, And Treatment.
* This article is informational only and is in no way a substitute for seeking medical care from
Any Mammal Can Carry Rabies
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Opossums Are Very Resistant to Rabies
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Aggression May or May Not be a Symptom of Rabies
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Skunks Are Not The Number One Rabies Carrier
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