Rabies is a lethal disease that affects humans and most warm-blooded animals and birds. Dogs are the main source of human rabies infection, so you need to know how to protect your pet.
The causative agent of this disease is the rabies virus. Once in the circulatory system, it spreads through the nerve cells, reaches the salivary glands and cerebral cortex, causing an incompatible with life damage to the nervous system.
Causes of Infection in Dogs
The rhabdovirus is constantly in nature. In the absence of an epidemic, the virus persists for a long time in the organisms of animal carriers. Distinguish between wild (forest) and urban foci of infection. In natural conditions, the greatest danger is represented by foxes, wolves, raccoons and rodents. In the city, the main sources of infection are stray animals: dogs and cats.
The main way of infecting dogs is getting the saliva of a sick animal on damaged skin or mucous membranes during bites and scratches. Moreover, the saliva of animals becomes infectious 2 weeks before the first symptoms of the disease appear.
When the disease is in an advanced stage, then not only saliva, but also other biological fluids of the animal: blood, urine and feces, become capable of infection. Therefore, a dog can become infected by eating the carcasses of animals that have died from rabies, or by contact with their feces. This method of infection is possible if the dog has micro-damage to the skin or digestive tract.
Ways to protect against infection
In order to protect your dog from infection, you need to follow simple precautions. This disease is zooanthroponotic - humans can get sick with it, but unlike animals, humans are not vaccinated against rabies annually.
First of all, the animal must be vaccinated regularly. Primary rabies vaccination is given at an early age and repeated annually. A dog vaccine can lose its properties due to improper storage or transportation, so it is only effective in 96–98% of cases.
Rabies is a particularly dangerous disease. Free mass vaccination against this disease is carried out 2 times a year: in spring and autumn. To do this, you must come to the city veterinary station with the animal. If the dog is healthy from other diseases, then it will be vaccinated and given a veterinary passport with vaccination marks.
You should also adhere to certain rules for keeping a dog: do not allow her contact with stray and wild animals while walking, do not allow contact with dead animals or feces. It is necessary to feed the pet with care with raw meat that has not passed veterinary control, and it is better to completely exclude the meat of wild animals from its diet.
