Rabies is a disease, also known as “hydrophobia,” that is fatal to both humans and mammals. The rabies virus is transmitted through bites of an infected animal because the virus lives in the saliva in the mouth of an animal. The rabies virus causes swelling in the brain from attacking the CNS or central nervous system in an animal. The incubation period for the rabies virus can be a couple of days to several months before showing symptoms. During this time the animal may seem to be normal. Once the symptoms start to show in an animal, it is too late to reverse the process of the disease and will eventually kill the animal.

Rabies is most common in raccoons, bats, and skunks. While rabies is mostly heard of being a raccoon virus; bats contribute to spreading rabies to humans in 75 percent of the time. Raccoon rabies started in the southern states of Florida and Georgia in the 1950s. Now over the past couple of decades, raccoon rabies has slowly spread across the United States.

Symptoms of the rabies virus are flu-like symptoms in the animal that include fever and headache. As the disease gets worse, animals begin to lose brain function causing hallucinations and foaming at the mouth. There are two different types of rabies viruses; furious rabies and dumb rabies. Furious rabies has a fast onset, meaning the animal will show symptoms earlier. The symptoms are agitation and aggressiveness, followed by paralysis and death. Dumb rabies has a slower onset of symptoms, but they are just as severe. Dumb rabies symptoms are laziness of the animal, are only partially paralyzed, and may be easier to catch or seem tame.

Always contact a local wildlife department to remove an animal from a residential area if suspect an animal may have rabies. Keep your pets up to date on shots and keep them inside, as well as your children.