The Texas Department of State Health Services reported Crosby County had its first documented rabies case in 47 years in a horse.
Posted: December 11, 2010 – 12:17am
By ALYSSA DIZON
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
The Texas Department of State Health Services reported Crosby County had its first documented rabies case in 47 years in a horse.
This was the third horse rabies case this year and the 30th horse case in the 41 counties in DSHS’ Region 1 to date, said Karen McDonald, DSHS Zoonosis control specialist. Like the horse in Crosby County, the other horse rabies cases were related to a strain of rabies originating from a skunk.
In his 32 years as a veterinarian, Kody Kothmann of Caprock Veterinary Clinic in Lubbock said he had never encountered a horse with rabies.
The horse was a white 3-year-old Morgan mare named Pearl that belonged to Stephanie Jones of Lubbock. Pearl and another horse were kept on a ranch south of Lorenzo, but on Nov. 15, Stephanie noticed her horse was acting strangely, said her father, John.
Pearl was not eating or drinking and was starting to lose weight, so John contacted Kothmann.
When Kothmann saw Pearl he suspected rabies, he said, even though there was no visible bite on the horse’s body.
“The horse was losing 40 to 50 pounds a day,” Kothmann said. “On the three days I observed the horse, it was deteriorating very quickly.”
Pearl pressed her head against the wall and had flared nostrils, hyper-excitability, twitching of both eyes and an inability to swallow — that was the sign she had facial nerve paralysis and most likely rabies, he said.
By Nov. 18, Pearl could no longer stand, so she was euthanized. Her body was buried, and her brain was sent to the DSHS laboratory in Austin for testing. The following week, DSHS confirmed Pearl’s ailment had been rabies.
It was a difficult, costly, but important lesson for the Jones family. Their other horse was vaccinated twice, but DSHS told John to keep it in quarantine for 90 days as a precaution.
‚ÄúI would highly recommend anyone with horses to get them vaccinated … just like a dog or a cat,‚Äù said John, who made sure his family and animals were all vaccinated. ‚ÄúSkunks are carriers, and it is a risk.‚Äù
Although the vaccination cost about $1,000, he said it was worth it to avoid another tragic death.
Dogs and cats are required to get rabies vaccinations, but livestock and animals that often come in contact with humans should be vaccinated regularly as well, McDonald said.
Since 2004, there has not beena report of a horse rabies case in Lubbock; Lubbock’s most recently reported rabies case was a cat in March.