Notwithstanding the fact that it’s already later in the day, this strikes me as pretty weak (on the part of the owner, not you). Just ask the owner to provide you with the contact information for the vet clinic, call them yourself and find out the vaccination information over the phone. I’m pretty sure HIPAA privacy rules don’t apply to dogs. :dubious:
No, but individual states may have their own laws pertaining to veteran confidentiality. For instance, Texas:
I agree the ER should had call the ACO and if they couldn’t had reach the ACO ER could of called the police and they would had gotten a hold of the ACO. The ACO should be on call 24 /7 . The ACO told me when I was bitten by the cat I might as well give him the name owner of the cat while he already at ER otherwise he would have to come back to get all the info .
Link to the relevant Austin city government page, including instructions on reporting a bite that required medical attention. The biting dog must be put under observation regardless of vaccination status (if vaccinated the dog may be kept at home during the observation period.
Contacted animal control 1/2 hour ago.
I was talking to the owner and the dog was very agitated and barking hostilely, probably perceiving me as a threat to the owner - and then when the dog was able to (it was on a leash the whole time,) it lunged at my leg and bit.
This is strange. When my son was bitten by a dog at the airport in Austin about three years ago (long story), the emergency room doctor insisted he get the rabies shot. The hospital did have it on hand. That may be because the dog’s owner disappeared out of the airport with the dog before the police could track her down, so we could never be sure it was vaccinated (another part of the long story).
WOW ! The dog owner should realize their dog was seeing you as a threat and warned you to move way back . The owner should have their dog on a short lease if is that aggressive .
If the wound is deep, I would be worried about bacterial infection. Here’s a case where someone nearly died due to improperly diagnosed infection resulting from a dog bite.
Not to be a scaremonger - the patient in the above article had no spleen, which increased his risk. But still.
Yeah, the clinic doctor mentioned that. I did wash the wound with soap and water less than 10 minutes after the bite, and had it on Neosporin for the night, and the doctor says if there are blood-infection symptoms, that antibiotics will be prescribed. So hopefully it’s covered. Not too deep a bite - less than half an inch deep.
Just curious: what breed/size/etc.?
Looked kind of like a medium-to-small sized border collie.
Unrelated: So, the Austin bureaucrats told me protocol is, don’t administer rabies vaccines to people until *after *the 10-day inspection/quarantine period, and then only if the dog has rabid symptoms. Nagging them apparently won’t have any effect. I am mildly pissed…this is a rather irresponsible approach. Those 10 days are important. So if someone did get the virus into their body via a bite, they’re just supposed to let it grow unabated for 10 days? Not that I think I’ve really contracted it, but this is a very casual approach.
I sure hope this isn’t what they do when a wild raccoon or coyote bites.
Sounds utterly bizarre – kind of hard to believe, actually, if there’s any doubt at all about the dog’s vaccination status.
But do keep an eye out for infection as well, as mentioned. I’ve had some bites and scratches that I treated as you did and they were fine, but then I had a bite that did get infected. My doctor didn’t think that oral antibiotics would be sufficient and sent me to the ER. He was right. It required two rounds of intravenous antibiotic over the course of two days.
That’s exactly how things went when I got bit at work a few years ago. The dogs were unvaccinated, so the owner had to keep them confined until 10 days after the biting incident, then Animal Control examined them and declared them rabies free. I did not get the rabies shot.
First of all, never take anybody’s words about dog being inoculated against rabies. You take action and establish it. Report it to authorities.
It’s your life that’s at risk not his.
The dog will have to be taken in for observation. I believe that’s 10 days at the kennel. You go get treated for infection as the dog’s mouth are nasty. Later you can find you need rabies shots or not.
Be sure you are updated on Tetanus shots, especially after dog bite. Lockjaw is no fun.
I was bitten by a rabid cat, and the stray cat was noticeably ill. They did test the cat, which took days. Once the test came back positive, i was told to go immediately to the hospital for my ( many) shots.
And now i am immune. Which is nice. But while it’s scary, a few days isn’t that big a deal.
Eta: with regards to the rabies, a few days isn’t a big deal. I would definitely make sure you get a tetanus shot and make sure you don’t get an infection at the puncture site.
Velocity, I’m still rather nonplussed by the attitude of your local officials. I understand a desire to balance the expense and possible idiosyncratic harmful effects of treatment versus the realistic odds of you having an actual exposure. And so I can accept, at least theoretically, the hesitation to treat. I’m less sanguine about the ten day delay pending the dog’s quarantine, but my opinion isn’t binding on your officialdom. I’m sure you’ll be fine, the odds are astronomically in your favor. But I’m glad (especially in light of my own personal chances of exposure) that the system here is different.
As a separate issue I feel compelled to correct a misapprehension commonly held by people and repeated upthread. This regards rabies being characterized by agitation, aggressive behaviors, and foaming at the mouth. Called furious rabies, this is certainly one mode in which rabies may present. But a rabid animal may also be calm, tractable, or even “tame”. Called dumb rabies, this presentation has fooled many people into petting or otherwise handling the animal. Both forms are equally capable of transmitting rabies to another animal, or to you or a child. And the same animal may alternate between the two states.
Finally, let’s not do more than mention asymptomatic carriers (in the USA raccoons, bats, and skunks are the most notable examples) who can carry and transmit rabies while showing no symptoms at all. Quarantine is ineffective for these species.
OP, you might also rinse the wound w/ hydrogen peroxide; this may also stave off potential tetanus.
It takes a month for you to develop foaming at the mouth after you get bitten: there is a related timeline for a dog. They are infective well before they start dying.
This web site said we are more likely to get rabies from our pets than wild animals .