Myth: A dog doesn’t have rabies if he acts friendly.

Fact: An infected dog can have any number of mood changes due to the rabies virus. A normally aggressive dog could suddenly act friendly, and the reverse is true. Also, an animal can transmit the disease before showing any clinical signs.

Myth: A rabid dog or animal with rabies shows fear of water.

Fact: People infected with rabies get painful spasms when trying to drink, which leads to ‘hydrophobia’ (fear of water). Animals don’t have these spasms, and may drink all they want.

Myth: A rabid animal froths at the mouth.

Fact: Not always. Only the animals with the paralytic rabies will salivate continually due to jaw muscles being paralyzed. Paralytic rabies is present in about 20% of rabies cases. The other 80% won’t have this symptom.

Myth: A rabid animal will be vicious and snap at everything.

Fact: Only the animal with the ‘furious’ type of rabies is likely to act this way.

Myth: Skunks are the number one rabies carrier.

Fact: In the United States, according to the ASRR, raccoons have the largest number of rabies cases in a species. Due to militant vaccination practices with dogs, rabies has become predominantly a wildlife problem. However, world-wide, unvaccinated dogs are the number one transmitters of the disease.