"Why does my indoor cat need the rabies vaccine? He never goes outside."
The short answer is that bats come inside and sometimes indoor cats go outside. Rabies is fatal and is transmissible to people. Protect yourself and your family by vaccinating your cat!
A Georgia couple found this out the hard way Last month. Their cat was overdue for the rabies vaccine when it bit the owner and then died. The cat tested positive for rabies so the owner and his fiancé are both undergoing treatment. If the cat had run away and died, the owners may not have known that they were exposed to rabies until it was too late. Here is a link to more information on that case.
Rabies vaccine is required by law in Oconomowoc, yet many of our clients choose not to vaccinate their cats for rabies. The risk of their cat getting rabies is certainly low but the consequences could be deadly to the cat, and to human family members as well.
As veterinarians, we work hard to keep pets healthy. Many people don't realize that we also take our role in human health very seriously too. Your pediatrician may not think of pet health and how it relates to keeping your children healthy but we do. Rabies and intestinal parasites are the two things we worry about most.
Veterinarians recommend deworming pets and checking annual fecal exams, not just because worms are disgusting, but because some intestinal parasites can transmit from pets to people. About 10% of the fecal samples we test are positive!
Keep your pets healthy, keep your family healthy: keep pets current on rabies vaccine, fecal exams and deworming.
For more information on rabies, see this CDC website
For more on intestinal parasites, see this CDC website
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