Dog and human communicable diseases - Rabies

The subject of dogs and diseases which are communicable by humans was touched up in the 1982 animated feature Plague Dogs, with the movie based on the novel of the same title by Richard Adams.

Given the fact that human contact with dogs is something which can be described as “commonly encountered”, the story was a huge success since it covered different aspects dogs are known to encounter, as the story’s plot is backdropped by a danger which all dog owners must be fully aware of and should be wary about – the possibility of a doggy disease being passed to dog owners.

The Zoonosis Case

With dog-and-human-infecting diseases described as zoonosis, the case of diseases or viruses found in dogs infecting humans has been well documented over the years, with most zoonosis cases described to be not really playing a major threat to the health and safety of human beings.

However, this doesn’t mean that all doggy diseases should be treated as minor threats, with some diseases actually doing significant harm to the overall health and wellness of human beings.

Here is one of (the most popular of) them:

Rabies – as a virus, rabies is known for infecting the central nervous system, typically introduced into human bodies through a dog bite. Though rare, “non bite” cases of rabies are also known to have infected human beings, through saliva or mucosal contact with rabies infected dogs.

When in humans, the virus is known to go through a set of stages, covering incubation, prodrome, acute neurologic period, coma and then, death.

It is quite serious as a condition, and should a person get bitten by an unknown dog, checks for rabies is important given the impact and effect the disease is known to have in human beings.

As dogs are found almost anywhere where humans are, the risk of acquiring doggy diseases is one which everyone should pay close attention to, since there are actual diseases which do affect dogs and human beings alike.