Michele Cameron and her family had a rough weekend as they awaited recommendations from medical professionals on whether to treat the Camerons’ 12-year-old daughter for rabies after she had been bitten Thursday by a dog whose vaccination had expired in March.
The family spent most of Friday trying to locate the owner of the dog to find out if the animal had a valid rabies vaccination, after the dog owner allegedly left the scene where the dog had bitten the 12-year-old girl.
Cameron’s daughter was outside in her neighborhood at Ridgemark on Thursday at the twilight hour with two other neighbor boys near Sunny’s Way when her daughter alleged a woman had two dogs off leash nearby. One of the dogs, a chocolate Labrador, came up and licked her. But the second dog that approached her, which looked like a black and white Australian cattle dog, allegedly bit her on her lower leg.
“The woman came over and asked if they bit her and my daughter started yelling yes,” Cameron said Friday morning. “She was bleeding profusely. The woman said the dog will attack anything that moves.”
According to Cameron, the woman walked away with her dogs without identifying herself.
“My daughter was about five minutes away and had to limp home, bleeding all over the place,” Cameron said.
Cameron said she immediately washed out the wound before she and her husband looked around the neighborhood to see if they could spot the woman to find out if her dogs had been vaccinated for rabies. Cameron’s husband rushed the girl to the Hazel Hawkins’ emergency room to treat the wound while Cameron waited for a sheriff’s deputy to take a report on the dog attack.
After an article posted on the Hollister Free Lance website Friday, Cameron said the family started getting tips on a Facebook page, Hollister Neighborhood Watch.
“We had people in cars and walking, everyone looking on their phones and following the Facebook page,” Cameron said.
With the help of residents who spotted the dog owner walking her two dogs and two sheriff’s deputies, they were able to identify the dog owner.
“The dog is quarantined and being watched,” Cameron said. “But I was working all morning to get as much information. The dog had a rabies vaccination that had expired March 22.”
Cameron said she had talked with the dog’s veterinarian to find out the specifics of the vaccine the dog had received in March 2012 and also reviewed recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The dog’s veterinarian and the Camerons’ veterinarian said rabies vaccines last for eight to 12 months after the shot expires.
“We were getting different recommendations,” Cameron said. “One said she should be treated immediately and others said we can wait 10 days to see if the dog gets rabies – and both are right.”
The family, after consulting several sources, decided it was safe for their daughter to forego the rabies shot series four days after she was bitten. They had originally planned to start the rabies protocol Monday morning on their doctors’ recommendation if they were not able to identify the dog.
