My tip post today has absolutely nothing to do with quilting, but, I feel that it is important and perhaps there are some of you, your children, or grandchildren out there who might need to know this.
Several years ago, one of our grown daughters and I went shopping at a mall. We had just stepped up on the sidewalk, when a bat flew near us. It fluttered around my daughter’s skirt, flew around the mall entrance, then flew away. This was in broad daylight!
A couple of years ago, we had just gotten on an entrance ramp for a busy divided highway. There, about 30 feet from the ramp, stood a coyote. He just stood there watching the cars go by. Again, broad daylight!
Today, as I was coming home from work, I saw something in the middle of the road. As I got closer, I realized it was an opossum! Just standing there. It was standing on the middle yellow line and cars were passing on either side of it. It would take a step or two, but, for the most part it just stood there. Yet, again, broad daylight!
After the bat incident, I called our other daughter who is a veterinarian, and told her about it. She said the bat probably had rabies. I told her that it wasn’t acting aggressive at all. More curious than anything.
She told me something that day that I had never heard before. She said the bat probably had “Dumb Rabies”.
An animal infected with the rabies virus doesn’t always become aggressive. (My experience with rabies was watching the movie,”Old Yeller”!) She said that it depends on which part of the brain is affected by the rabies virus.
Each of these animals were behaving totally out of the norm. Bats are nocturnal creatures, so this one flying around in the daytime was totally abnormal. A coyote is usually nocturnal when they are in close proximity to humans. This was a fairly big town and in the middle of the day. Abnormal.
Opossums, too, are nocturnal. This one was standing/walking in the middle of the road in the middle of the day.
Bats, coyotes, skunks, any mammal really, can contract rabies. She said, that it is extremely rare for Opossums to contract rabies because their body temperature is too low and the virus cannot survive. This opossum was probably sick with something else and just didn’t know what it was doing.
So, my tip today is…
Be aware of animals who are acting totally opposite of how they normally would. It might just be “Dumb Rabies”.
Call Animal Control to pick it up.
Today is a good day to share information!
Diane