Symptoms of Rabies in Cats

Cats with rabies usually retreat to hidden areas and attack fiercely when humans or other animals approach. The symptoms of a sick cat include dilated pupils, arched back, extended claws, continuous meowing, and gradually becoming hoarse. As the disease progresses to the paralysis stage, the cat's movements become increasingly uncoordinated, followed by paralysis of the hindquarters, then paralysis of the head muscles, and finally collapses and dies.

How Do Cats Get Rabies?

Rabies is a zoonotic natural epidemic disease caused by the rabies virus. In nature, it can infect almost all warm-blooded mammals, including dogs, foxes, wolves, jackals, and bats. The main sources of transmission are dogs and cats carrying the rabies virus. In addition to being directly infected by bites from dogs, cats, and foxes carrying the virus, cats can also contract rabies by eating their infected carcasses, with bones scratching the digestive tract mucosa.

How to Tell if a Cat Has Rabies

Rabies is also known as hydrophobia, and after infection, cats will exhibit fear of wind and water, and behave aggressively towards humans and animals. If clinical symptoms appear, the mortality rate is almost 100%. Normally, without clinical symptoms, it is impossible to tell if a cat has rabies. Diagnosis can be confirmed by blood collection, rabies antigen detection, or histopathological examination of rabies virus in tissue.

How Long Can a Cat Live with Rabies?

From the time a cat is infected with rabies to death, it generally takes 3-9 days. The average incubation period for rabies is 20-60 days, and the disease can be divided into aggressive and paralytic types. Most cats infected with rabies have the aggressive type. The pre-clinical stage of a cat infected with rabies usually lasts less than 1 day, the excited stage usually lasts 1-4 days, and the paralysis stage usually lasts 1-4 days. A few cats infected with rabies have the paralytic type, which usually dies within a few hours or 1-2 days after onset.