Dog tests positive for rabies in Grant County

A dog was euthanized after testing positive for rabies on Monday in Grant County.

It was the 11th case of rabies found in Grant County since 2020, New Mexico Department of Health spokesperson David Barre said in a release Thursday. The last time a dog contracted rabies in New Mexico was in 2023 in Bernalillo County, according to the NMDOH rabies website.

“This dog had not received any veterinarian-administered rabies vaccines,” according to the news release. “A rabies vaccine purchased over the counter had been administered.”

Rabies is a progressive neurologic disorder that affects the nervous system of the animal — causing a wide variety of symptoms including aggression, trouble with eating or drinking, and lethargy.

“It is always fatal,” said Dr. Erin Phipps, state public health veterinarian for NMDOH. “There have been a couple rare documented cases of recovery in humans … but it’s not something that animals or people can be expected to recover from.”

The infected dog was euthanized and people who had been exposed to the dog were receiving rabies shots as a precautionary measure, according to the release. Dogs who made contact with the infected dog were given booster shots and will be monitored by NMDOH for 45 days.

Rabies is typically transferred through the saliva of an infected animal, most commonly through a bite, Phipps said.

NMDOH Scientific Laboratory Division tested the dog to confirm it had rabies.

While testing cannot determine how an animal gets rabies, the test will show what type of strain. In this case, the rabies was a fox strain variant, which indicates that a fox or another wild animal that had gotten the fox variant bit the dog.

Phipps is not concerned about a potential rabies outbreak, but she said it is important to have animals vaccinated.

“This incident serves as a reminder to residents that while rabies is relatively rare in our state, animals can contract the disease from local wildlife,” Phipps said. “Rabies is known to circulate in wildlife, especially foxes and bats, in southwestern New Mexico.”