<<<<<< Pseudo Rabies Alert >>>>>>

Hate to hear about the loss of the dogs to Pseudo Rabies. I had a scary experience with it several years ago.

A buddy had brought his kids and come to the ranch and hunted with me a few times. Well, you know what that leads to, he then wanted his own dog. I didn't have any pups or young dogs, so he got a pup from someone else. Raised the pup up to about 4-5 months, kids loved the dog, everything was going great.

They wanted to show him a hog, so I caught a boar shoat with Dixie one Friday afternoon while out checking cows and put it in the dogbox. This guy brought his pup out Sat morning, we hobbled two of the shoats legs and turned him loose with the pup watching. He hobbled around and went off in a patch of high grass. We turned the pup loose and he ran over to where he last saw the hog and smelled all over. We finally walked him into the grass and the hog tried to run at the pup, but fell over. The pup went nuts, bayed, trying to bite the shoat, ect.

Pup acted good, wasn't scared and showed lots of interest. The shoat had a lot of fight but was having trouble standing and fighting due to being tied.

We untied the shoat, let him loose, then turned the pup loose. The pup ran in , the shoat came to him and they had a little go around. The shoat broke and got away from the pup. I had Dixie in the truck and didn't want a BOAR shoat turned lose as I cut every one I get my hands on, so I turned Dixie loose. She caught him within 100-150 yards and the pup followed us in and caught the shoat with Dixie.

We cut the pig and turned it loose, we were done for the day. Monday I got a phone call that their pup is scratching and digging sores in himself. I tell them to get him to a vet quick.
The vet sedated him to keep him from hurting himself, pulled blood for tests (I had told them to have him check for Psuedo) and hoped for the best. By Wednesday the pup was dead, tests came back positive for Psuedo and I was looking at Dixie with a heavy heart. That was the ONLY pig the pup had ever seen in his life and I caught the pig with Dixie on Friday, then again on Saturday.

Luckily Dixie never got it. I asked my vet (who is very smart and holds the highest grade of any vet graduate at UF) about it. He felt that somewhere in her life Dixie must have been exposed and her body had built up some immunity to the disease. The pup, being young, had no such immunity.

There is no cure and when I asked about a vaccine , he told me there wasn't one because there was no MONEY in it. He told me the vaccine companies had done some research on a Psuedo vaccine, but felt that such a small percentage of dogs were exposed to wild hogs and of those, only a percentage of owners would buy the vaccines, that they couldn't justify spending the money to develop the vaccine............

So there could be a vaccine........we are just such a minority the vaccine companies won't make a vaccine to save our dogs. Makes you wonder if they are in it for the animals well being or just the money doesn't it??