Rabies

[blackbroom]

I know this is the anxiety talking, but my cat is drooling more than normal this evening and I've managed to convince myself he has rabies and has given it to me.

I know that no-one's acquired rabies in the UK for over 100 years, so I'm being totally ridiculous (especially as I thought I had tetanus last week!), but I'm still feeling very scared. My anxiety has been far, far worse in the last few weeks and I've just read that increased anxiety can be a symptom of rabies.

If it were 10am on a weekday, I'd take the cat to the vet to get him checked out, but at 9.30pm on a Saturday night, there's not a lot I can do.

[KeeKee]

I have 3 cats and one is a drooler. He also has quite bad teeth and I often wonder if that's why he drools (he didn't always drool).
I have read that in the UK the only chance of getting rabies is through a bat and it's still rare. I honestly wouldn't worry but understand that's hard. Rabies isn't simply drooling from what I've read it's literally foaming at the mouth. Your cat would be displaying other symptoms if he had rabies I'm quite sure.

[Phuzella]

It's not rabies. Keep an eye on him to make sure he's OK. Is probably the heat

[blackbroom]

Thanks, KeeKee and Phuzella - I know it's infinitely more likely he has bad teeth or a mouth injury (that's worrying enough - I don't like leaving it until Monday if he might be in pain, but it doesn't seem bad enough to justify calling the out-of-hours vet). He's been eating a bit less than normal this week and has been sick a couple of times (both of which I'd put down to the heat/hairball season) and been a bit more clingy than normal (which I put down to the fact that I was away last weekend and he missed me).

I know for me to get rabies would take an enormous chain of unlikelihoods - for a UK pet to be infected at all (he'd have to be bitten by a bat or an unquarantined pet that had been smuggled in and whose own rabies hadn't been discovered) and for me to get infected when he hasn't bitten me (I did get some of his drool in my face the other day and I've been stroking him when I've got open wounds on my hands where I got pricked by brambles, both of which could potentially be ways of passing on rabies, but far less likely than bites) - but you know how anxiety messes with your sense of probability