If the trend stays true to form, there will be an increase in the year 2000. You walk into your field or stall to catch your horse, and there he stands, lame, with one leg swollen from the stifle down to twice its normal size. There are many things that can cause this condition, and some of them are life-threatening. The disease is caused by a rickettsia organism called Ehrlichia risticii. A rickettsia is a germ that is evolutionally between a big bacteria and a little virus.
Horses show varying symptoms, depending on the severity of the infection.
In the beginning, signs include depression, decreased appetite and fever. Horses can get rabies as easily as dogs and cats perhaps even more easily, considering that they re generally kept in places where they might cross paths with rabies-infected wildlife, the most likely transmitters of the disease. The most common method of transmission is from certain wild animals, in the United States - skunks, raccoons, foxes and bats are the most commonly infected wild animals. Bats that have been tested for rabies virus in Washington and Idaho have commonly tested positive for the disease. Domestic dogs and cats can transmit the disease to horses as well.