The Return Of Rabies

Click here to read the complete article
238 – February, 2026

By Amy Fernandez 

On December 23rd the dog world received an unwanted holiday gift–a rescue dog in Cook County, Illinois had tested positive for rabies. This was the first rabies-positive dog in the state of Illinois since 1994 and the first in Cook County since 1964. Those numbers align with the rest of the US where rabies long ago ceased to pose a threat to household pets.

That’s an amazing achievement, but…this level of safety can foster an unwarranted sense of security about disease risk. The fact that we don’t encounter rabies does not imply that the risk has ceased to exist. That mindset is a modern luxury.

In many parts of the world, rabies continues to pose a major threat to human health, which was the case everywhere until very recently. In that respect, rabies is inseparable from human history. The first documented description of the disease was found in an ancient legal code from 2300 BC. But rabies was a dreaded killer long before the advent of historical recordkeeping. That equation of rabies=death remained the status quo for centuries.

In 1845, William Youtt offered this horrifying slice of reality in The Dog:

Click here to read the complete article
238 – February, 2026

Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=348746

Posted by AnthonyA on Feb 6 2026. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.