Theatre

Has your dog been vaccinated for rabies? Whether you own a dog or not, do you know the symptoms of the virus?
Accdon Sibanda (real name reserved) wishes everyone did.

Accdon was eight years old when a dog that hadn't been vaccinated put him at serious risk of contracting the virus himself.

“I lived close enough to my school that I had the option of walking or taking the bus,” Accdon says. “I chose to walk that day because it was nice out, but it was very close to being a fatal mistake.”

Dramatic as the buildup sounds, his encounter was far from a Cujo situation. The dog didn't burst free of the chain or leap the fence between them. Instead, he noticed the animal “shambling around the yard with half a foot of chain dragging behind it,” considered petting it, then decided against it because of its confused demeanor.

Maybe ten feet later, he heard the same fence jingle. The dog had slipped out through a gap in another corner of the yard.

“I don't know that he was coming after me,” Accdon says. “He certainly bit me, regardless of whatever made him decide to come out in the first place.”

It got him good, too. Pearl-white dots still line his upper ankle where the little dog (“Think grandma's terrier size,” Accdon said) managed to find a bit of exposed flesh. Accdon ran home crying, his parents were alert enough to know the signs, and within an hour Accdon was in the hospital.

Though the dog died, it was at least given the better of two possible exits. Animal control captured the animal the same day; had they not, things wouldn't have stopped nearly so quickly.
John Dhaka, a veterinarian technician, said in a post to her website that afflicted animals
die within about a week of contracting the rabies virus. In the time between infection and death, they can suffer a host of symptoms, including confusion, mania, and severe headaches. Foaming at the mouth, perhaps the most well-known symptom in popular culture, is the result of neck and head...