Dogs Kill Rabid Raccoon in Greenfield Hill Area of Fairfield

It's bad enough when your dog attacks another animal, but a horrible incident last week in Fairfield has transformed into a potentially life-threatening situation for 6 dogs.

Six dogs killed a raccoon in Fairfield last week, Fairfield Animal Control says that the incident happened during the evening of March 27, 2024, in the fenced-in yard of a home in the Greenfield Hills area of Fairfield. Fairfield Animal Control Officers picked up the dead raccoon the following morning and brought it up to the UConn Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Storrs for testing. A positive test for rabies came back the following day.

Here comes some partial good news - All of the dogs were vaccinated, had recently received rabies booster vaccinations from their vet, and the dog's owner did not handle the dead raccoon, or their dogs, following the incident. There was no human exposure, and the dogs are safe.

Fairfield Animal Control reports that as a precaution, all six dogs have been placed on a strict 45 day home confinement, per Connecticut rabies protocol. This is the first raccoon to test positive in Fairfield in several years. If the 6 dogs were not up to date with their rabies vaccinations, they would have faced a mandatory 6 month off-property quarantine.

The latest rabies statistics available for Connecticut on ct.gov are for January 1 - December 31, 2022. I'm sure the 2023 numbers are bring crunched as I write this. In total, 9 rabid raccoons were confirmed in Connecticut, also 8 skunks, 8 bats, 1 fox, and 1 cat. Adding up to 27 confirmed cases of rabies in Connecticut for all of 2022.