Record Numbers Turn Out For Last Saturday’s Rabies Clinic
Beau and Tye were just two of the dogs who came to the rabies clinic Saturday for rabies vaccines and microchips
This past weekend’s spring rabies clinic at the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter may have broken some records.
The shelter typically holds a spring and fall rabies clinic where they offer rabies vaccines for just $5 and dog and cat distemper shots for $7.
Shelter director Sheri Lockhart said people began arriving Saturday morning well before the 10a start time.
So many people came out with their pets, the shelter staff couldn’t keep up with the demand.
“We had people lining in the parking lot at 9a,” Lockhart said Monday. “Thank goodness Dr. Noler got there at 9:15a or we would have been in a mess. We even ran out of vaccines. We had to turn people away because we ran out of rabies vaccines.”
One man, Lockhart said, brought 27 animals at one time. And no wonder there was such a crowd Saturday.
In the past month, there have been two confirmed cases in which not only pets, but people have either been attacked by rabid animals or handled a rabid animal.
The first took place in Franklin County where a chicken farmer in the Red Hill Community was attacked by a rabid barn cat. That woman had to undergo a series of post exposure shots.
A second case took place just over the county line in Stephens County where a rabid Golden Retriever attacked a dog on a leash.
Both dogs had to be euthanized and people who handled the dogs after the dog fight had to also receive the post rabies exposure shots.
Lockhart said that news prompted pet owners to make sure their animals were protected.
“We did 317 rabies vaccines; just rabies vaccines,” she said. “A lot of people came for just the distemper shots and others came for just microchips. But if I had to guess I would say we had over 400 animals come through. It was the biggest rabies clinic we ever had.”
New this year, the shelter also offered microchips for pets for $20. Lockhart said they did 15 microchips and she said they hope to have a clinic just for microchips sometime this year.
Now if you missed this past Saturday’s rabies clinic, another countywide clinic is coming up in Franklin County on May 2nd, which is sponsored by the Franklin County Health Department. A list of locations is available on the Franklin County Health Department Web site.