Rabies Awareness

Our family puppy - Emcee (mixed breed terrier)

at 4 months

It always excites me to have some pets at home. I love animals. I probably grew up with sorts of animals in our household. We had 2 German Shepherds and a Terrier when I was younger. Even before these dogs, I collect different worms and placed them inside different jars and try to study them and their nature and all that. I also fancy spiders and would go around the subdivision with the boys just to find black widow spiders. Then upon growing up, I had Yuri, my kitten as a pet which I could vividly remember, my mom wanted to get rid of all the time cause Yuri would poop a lot inside our room. Then we had all sorts of mongrel. When I got married and had a baby, we tried to give Kurt a small aquarium. We filled it up with different fishes because he can't have a dog or cat for a puppy although we still have cats just at the back of the house. My son couldn't have dogs or cats or furry pets because he's asthmatic to furry things. My step father bought several chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, goat and pigs for my son to experience what is it like to have different animals in our backyard.

Then my brother finally decided to get one of the puppies of his friends. We took the puppy when the pup was just 2 months old. My son loves the pup so much. He would play with the pup and Kurt would get very upset if people would scold the dog. He loves pets and animals so much. Until one day, I noticed a scratch on my son's face. It stopped bleeding but there was a deep scratch. I asked him where he got it and he said that Emcee (the puppy) scratched him. I washed the wound with soap and water; then I immediately went to the hospital with ANIMAL CARE CENTER for medical treatment. I got worried because I wasn't sure if my brother had the pup vaccinated or not. 

The nurses gave my son the first shot for anti - rabies and then they educated us that there should be a series of injections to follow. We should observe the dog and have it reported if there is something unusual with the dog.

 My son and the puppies. Emcee's siblings..

According to rabiesawareness.com , "Rabies is a viral disease that affects the nervous system of mammals, including humans. Animals and people can get rabies when they come into contact with the saliva of, or most often through the bite of an infected animal.¹ 

If a person is bitten by, or exposed to an animal that may have rabies, he or she must receive appropriate medical care immediately in order to prevent rabies disease."

Since I was not sure about the vaccine of the pup, I had to make sure that my son would get his own vaccination.

Things to do:

1) Wash the wound immediately with anti bacterial soap and water.

2) Give immediate medical attention by going to a nearby hospital with Animal Bite Center units. They are experts with this.

3) Never kill the dog. Observe the dog's behavior whether vaccinated or not. There should be a 14 day observation for the status of the dogs.

4) If the dog weakens or died in a few days, report that incident to the one giving the vaccine to your son or anybody who is bitten by a dog. They have a different number of dose of anti rabies vaccine for that than those whose dogs are not dead.

5) Never teach your kids to be scared with dogs (it happened to me once when I got bitten by a dog somewhere in Maitum). Teaching kids to be scared with dogs is not a solution. Instead, teach them what to do and not to do when there are dogs which are not behaving properly.

6) Never teach kids to be cruel to animals. Teach them how to understand animals. Besides, we, human beings are the highest form of animals but that doesn't make us more superior to them in all ways. That just meant that we, above all species should understand them better.

Emcee at 2 months

The vaccine is super costly. But there are public hospitals in the Philippines which have Animal Bite Centers, so if you don't have much money, public hospitals are also options.

I still had my boy checked with his pedia and the doctor said that if the puppy did not die and Kurt had his injections, that's alright. He should just complete it. It is for his own protection.

So, my son completed his vaccine series and is now protected for 3 years. He also got his Rabies Post-Exposure Prophylaxis Card.

For more of dog awareness, I recommend watching the dog whisperer on youtube by Ceasar Millan.

Well, that's it for today. I hope this blog helped you somehow mommies.. 

Have a great day!