Rabid bat found in your backyard!

That headline looks like something from a Hunter S. Thompson story, but it's not. A rabid bat WAS found earlier this month. OK, it wasn't in your backyard. It was in Griffith Park. which is kind of like everybody's backyard. Public health officials are asking anyone who touched the animal contact a doctor for possible anti-rabies treatment.

I think anybody who touches any kind of bat should have their head examined, never mind tested for rabies.

Rabies, or "hyderphobie" as they called it in "Old Yeller," is a very treatable disease that is found most commonly in wild animals like bats and raccoons and squirrels. Household pets account for fewer than 10 percent of rabies cases, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Here, read about it for yourself.

Only a few people die a year in the United States from it, but that's too many. If you're off in the woods and come into contact with a wild mammal, call your doctor and get treated.

And make sure your pets get their shots on time. Yeller got rabies and you know how that turned out!

A vet once told me that they don't give you big shots in the stomach to treat the disease anymore, but, not being a doctor myself, I can't vouch for that.  The vet also told me the reason for the stomach shots is that the antidote is so potent that the stomach is the only place in the body that won't be destroyed by it.

Well, that's what a vet told me once anyway.