With 21 confirmed cases in the Piedmont Health District of rabies in wild animals last year, the threat of the deadly disease isn't something we confront face-to-face on a daily basis. Or ever.

But the threat is out there lurking.

Out in the woods.

Along the side of the road.

Or very nearly on your front door stoop.

I nearly stepped on a skunk this summer while loading up items to transport to church for a fundraising auction. In and out of the house with items to put in the car. The sun brightly shining shortly after 6 p.m. The last thing on my mind was taking a plunge on a skunk. But there it was. I stepped over it, more or less, and hustled out into the front yard.

There is no way to know whether the skunk was rabid. Odds are it wasn't, though I wondered what it was doing in what, despite the hour of the evening, was broad daylight for mid-summer. Thankfully, it neither bit nor sprayed me with its particular brand of au de cologne.

But that's not the point.

Many people wrongfully conclude that if they don't hunt or wander fields and forests they run no risk of encountering a wild animal, rabid or rabies-free.

Not so. Bears are prowling in many neighborhoods in Buckingham, Cumberland and Prince Edward, along with raccoons, foxes, skunks, coyotes and other assorted wildlife.

Of those 21 confirmed cases of rabies in the Piedmont Health District in 2009, 11 were skunks. The skunk I nearly stepped on could have bitten me and it could have been rabid.

A rabid animal could just as easily-much more likely, in fact-bite your domestic pet. In addition to being alert for strange behavior in wild animals we encounter, all of us who own pets absolutely must have them vaccinated against rabies.

Doing so protects your pet, but also you, your children, and anyone else your pet might encounter.

Rabies is a deadly disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system of mammals and kills almost any animal or human that gets sick from it.

Last year there were 196 human victims of animal bites in the Piedmont Health District and 14 of those people had to undergo the rabies prophylaxis regimen of injections because of their contact with a proven or suspected rabid animal (they were unable to test the creatures), according to the Piedmont Health District.

It's no fun.

And usually easy to avoid.

If you take the right steps.

And watch your own steps down the front porch stoop, too.

Far more serious than my summer encounter with the skunk was the attack last week on two miniature Dachshunds by a raccoon in Buckingham. The attack, as reported on the front page of Friday's edition of The Herald, came after the two beloved pets were let out of the house to use the bathroom. For one of the dogs the ferocity of the attack proved fatal and the family member who fought off the raccoon with a stick is undergoing rabies treatment because the raccoon escaped and it is unknown whether the animal-again a daytime encounter with a nocturnal wild animal-was rabid. The man was not bitten but he was exposed to blood and saliva.

As that family member said about the surviving Dachshund, “I'm really glad Charlie was up to date on his rabies vaccination and he got his booster yesterday, too.”

Be glad your own pet is up to date on their rabies vaccination.

Oh, they're not? Then get going to the vet's office now.

Wild animals are, indeed, right outside your front door.

-JKW-