If you started to read this post because the title promised the sort of droll tale you expect from John Cleese or Stephen Fry I’m sorry to disappoint you! It’s a story about a gentle dog walk that turned into a rabid animal attack.
You might ask how I knew it was rabid. Was it tested for the rabies virus? [No] Have I encountered a rabid animal before? [No] I only had symptoms to go on, as well as familiarity with normal groundhog behavior. They often visit our yard to check if the veggie garden is ready for a nocturnal raid, but whenever I encounter them they run, and always in the opposite direction. So, what happened this morning?
I let the two dogs off the leash in a large meadow bordering the historic area of Jamestown Island, which we visit most weeks of the year. While the dogs were scampering a hundred yards ahead I noticed a large ball of brown fur in the grass and wandered over to examine it. I assumed it was a dead animal that scavengers hadn’t found yet, because I passed two dozen black vultures gorging on the carcass of a road-kill deer thirty minutes earlier.
When I was less than six feet away and bending over for a closer look at the body it suddenly unrolled and sprung to its feet in obvious fury, baring its incisors and making a strange gurgling sound. It was a large groundhog in a very bad way. Its coat was unkempt, not sleek from grooming, and its short tail looked like a chimney brush instead of a bushy duster. This groundhog had been fighting.
I expected it would run away but it ran at me, nipping at my loose trouser leg. It was crazy! When I stepped back it came again and again. I started to run until it flagged, and then stopped to take its photo with my cell phone from a cautious distance. It was a pathetic sight, and if there was a heavy object at hand I would have killed it humanely.
I hurried over to warn the ranger station, passing dozens of kids who had poured out of a bus to tour the historic area, but first I gathered and leashed the dogs. Had they encountered the beast I would be telling another story because one or more of our trio would have been bitten.
This first encounter with a symptomatic rabies victim will remind me in future to beware of mammals behaving uncharacteristically, and I mean any mammal because all are vulnerable to rabies.
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