Do I Have To Get My Dog Or Cat A Rabies Vaccine?

2021 Rabies Tags

Both dogs and cats, as well as ferrets, are required to have a rabies vaccination in New York State, and the veterinarian who administers the shot will give you a Rabies Tag as proof of inoculation. If you’re not a New York resident, you can find more information about your state here: Rabies Aware. You can get a rabies shot medical exemption for your dog or cat if a licensed veterinarian determines that the vaccination will adversely affect your pet’s health. If getting a rabies vaccination is a concern for you, best have a conversation with your veterinarian.

In addition, if you live in New York, you must obtain a license for your dog once it reaches the age of four months. How often that license needs to be renewed – every one, two or three years – is the option of your local government. Fees vary by county and some counties have a significantly lower fee if your dog is neutered or spayed. Cats and ferrets do not need to be licensed. And ferrets may present another issue depending upon where you reside. Continue reading “Do I Have To Get My Dog Or Cat A Rabies Vaccine?”

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Book Review: Rabid—A Cultural History

Rabid dog

By Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy

The full subtitle of this book neatly encapsulates its theme and tone: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus. Note that it identifies itself not as a general or scientific history, but as a “cultural” one. This is an accurate descriptive; for truly, few diseases known to humanity have branded themselves into our collective psyche and culture so widely, so deeply, and for so long; and as something not merely organically deadly but infernally so, and thus profoundly to be feared. (The few others that even come close include leprosy and polio.)

Though shelved in the non-fiction area of your library or bookstore, Rabid spins a series of tales and observations that could have come from the fictional horror story pen of Stephen King. It is at once fascinating and terrifying. The authors, a husband-and-wife team, are eminently qualified to write such a book. Wasik is a magazine editor who writes about science and technology; while Murphy is a veterinarian with a degree in public health. Together they have put together the definitive “biography” of the rabies pathogen. Continue reading “Book Review: Rabid—A Cultural History

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A Brief History of Rabies

Antique natural history book
Rabid: A Cultural History by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus

Rabies is a scourge as old as human civilization, and the terror of its manifestation is a fundamental human fear, because it challenges the boundary of humanity itself. That is, it troubles the line where man ends and animal begins—for the rabid bite is the visible symbol of the animal infecting the human, of an illness in a creature metamorphosing demonstrably into that same illness in a person.

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus
By Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy


Ketchum Mfg. Co. 2020 rabies tags on sale
On Sale! Order now and save 20%.

With the release of our line of 2020 Pet Rabies Tags for our customers’ dogs and cats, we at Ketchum Mfg. Inc. thought this would be an appropriate time to present a timeline of notable events in the rise of—and ongoing battle against—a pathogen that has plagued humankind and our domesticated animals since long before the first history book was written: the rabies virus. Continue reading “A Brief History of Rabies”

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