What happens if you don’t get your (indoor cat) a rabies shot?
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Anonymous
| I know it is a state law. Just wondering what happens when people are non-compliant. |
Anonymous
| Can’t imagine any vet would agree to treat it without one. |
Anonymous
| Nothing. Unless a rabid bat happens to enter your home and bite your cat. Happened to my neighbor. Cat had to be euthanized and whole family had to go through Rabies prophylaxis. |
Anonymous
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Most likely, nothing. An infected intruder (mouse, bat, etc.) might bite your cat, but that's highly unlikely. As for the legality, if your unvaccinated cat were to bite a guest, there could be trouble, legally speaking. Again, highly unlikely.
My vets have all said that my indoor-only cats can skip certain vax. We don't skip this one; the potential consequences, however unlikely, are significant enough that it's trouble. But since the odds of them ever coming in contact with a rabid animal are so low, we don't stress about it either. |
Anonymous
Really? Did the cat and/or bat bite literally everyone in the family? because rabies proph isn't recommended just because you saw a bat. |
Anonymous
Most likely nothing. At least where I am, nobody does routine animal inspections to verify compliance. We just don't have the staff to cover it. If there were some sort of incident, or you had a malicious, whiny neighbor who sent an anonymous tip about "I think there's an unvaccinated indoor cat on my block", the county would require you to vaccinate and license your animal. If your neighbor pulls that stunt, they're probably rabid and should be put down.  There are fines for being out-of-status, but unless there's some kind of incident, it's usually treated as more of a fix-it ticket, especially if the animals have had prior vaccines and are just late on boosters (studies have shown that the immunity provided by rabies shots last a lot longer than the booster timeline the law requires: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7088826/). The point isn't to penalize people, it's to prevent disease, so it's more of an education attempt than a cite and fine. Source: I'm a former animal control officer
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Anonymous
| Does your town require you to register the cat? A friend of mine got repeated calls from the town health officer when her dog was slightly overdue for a rabies booster. |
Anonymous
| Nothing. |
Anonymous
Exactly. It's been about two years since I've taken my cats to the vet so they haven't gotten the rabies. They'll get it net time I take them, but I'm not worried. They never leave the house to interact with any other animals. |
Anonymous
| Why wouldn't you get the vaccine? |
Anonymous
| Nothing. If you regularly shop around for new vets, they're going to miss that the cat isn't vaccinated. A lot of things in life are up to your own sense of ethics and morals, OP. Virtue is often its own reward. The shit hits the fan only rarely. Would you be devastated if a human died of rabies because your cat was infected? Are you prepared to gamble? |
Anonymous
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Vets won't treat your animals without proof of updated rabies, so if your cat gets sick they'll make you vaccinate then (and a vaccine while ill is no fun).
I can understand the headache of carting a cat to the vet though. Have you thought of one of the mobile vets who comes to you? |
Anonymous
This has nothing to do with morals or virtue for FFS. If your cat never goes outside, the risk that the cat would contract rabies and ever be able to infect someone is basically non-existent. However, your dumb virtue signaling over something that doesn't even matter is on full display. |
Anonymous
That works until the cat accidentally gets out - and I know, it'll never happen to you, but it did happen to us, and it was awful. We were very glad all the pets were UTD on shots. |
Anonymous
That is very unlikely to happen. It's more likely that something happens to the cat and because the cat isn't vaccinated, they are euthanized. |