A Bat in the Bathtub 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It looked like it was going to be another warm September day. The sun shone through the trees as I backed the truck out and headed for the clinic. Not a cloud to be seen in the sky.

Judy was already at the clinic when I arrived. It was hard for me to get there before her. Once she had Andi off to school, she would drop Bryon off at the babysitter and come to the clinic. It was difficult for me to be there first.

“Sudi is on her way with a bat,” Judy said as I walked through the door. “She sounded a little excited on the phone.”

“I’m hoping this is a dead bat,” I said.

“She didn’t say. She said she found it flopping around in her bathtub last night,”

“She is probably going to want it tested for rabies,” I said. “I guess I better call the lab and check their procedures.”

“I don’t think you need to be in a hurry,” Judy said. “She is just going to drop this thing off on the fly so she isn’t too late for her class. I don’t know why they start school so early these days?”

“They like to be out of school early,” I said. “They don’t worry about the little kindergartener up in Cascadia who has to get up five to catch the bus.”

Our conversation ended when Sudi burst through the door holding a quart jar. The bat was still fluttering in the jar.

“Dave, I caught this thing fluttering around in our bathtub last night,” Sudie said. “Frank thought we should have it tested for rabies. He read were Oregon’s bats carry rabies.”

“Were the kids sleeping while it was in the house?” I asked.

“Well, they weren’t sleeping when I caught the thing last night,” Sudi said. “But I have no idea where it came from or how it got in the house. I figured the cat must have brought it in and let it go.”

“Did you handle it when you put it in the jar?” I asked.

“No, I just scooped it up with the jar and put on the lid,” Sudie said. “I was going to let it suffocate, but the kids threw a fit, and I had to punch some holes in the lid.”

“Okay, I’ll get this to OSU,” I said. “You will probably have to pay for the testing, but that might be good. That way, without human exposure, you won’t have to deal with the public health folks.”

“Just let me know when you get the results,” Sudie said as she pushed open the door to leave.

After Sudi left, I called the lab for instructions. I spoke with Doctor Johnson, a new pathologist, probably a graduate student.

“I have a bat to send over rabies testing,” I said. “Are there any special instructions?”

“We can only do the testing if there has been no human exposure,” Dr. Johnson said.

“The client found the bat flopping around in her bathtub,” I said. “She didn’t handle it, just scooped it up in a quart jar. She thought the cat brought the bat into the house.”

“That sounds good,” Dr. Johnson said. “Is the bat dead?”

“No, it is still flopping around in the jar,” I said.

“It is a real hassle for us if you send it alive,” Dr. Johnson said. “We don’t have any way to euthanize it here in the lab. We have to get one of the pathologists from the necropsy side to euthanize it for us.”

“So you want me to euthanize it before I send it over,” I said. “Does that count for a human exposure?”

“You are supposed to be able to protect yourself,” Dr. Johnson said.

“Okay, I’ll figure something out,” I said. “How long will the test take if I get this bat over today?”

“This is Friday, you know. You will probably not get any results until Tuesday or Wednesday, even if you get it over here this afternoon,” Dr. Johnson said. “It is just going into our refrigerator. Getting it this afternoon will allow us to get started on it first thing Monday morning. That way, we should have results on Tuesday.”

I hung up the phone, and Dixie was looking at the bat with a frown on her face.

“What happens if this thing gets loose in the clinic?” Dixie asked.

We took the jar into the surgery room, wet a cotton ball with a few drops of Halothane, and dropped it into the jar. The bat was asleep almost instantly. 

“How long is he going to sleep?” Dixie asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but we don’t have to hurry,” I said. “We will let him soak in there for a few minutes while I draw up some euthanasia solution. Then I’ll dump him out of the jar outside so we all don’t get gassed. It will only take a second to get this injection into his chest. Then it is off to bus depot with him.”

***

I hadn’t given much thought to Sudie’s bat until the phone rang on Tuesday morning. It was Dr. Williams, the state public health veterinarian. 

“Dr. Larsen, that bat you submitted to OSU last week tested positive for rabies,” Dr. Williams said. “I just wanted to make sure I had the fact right.”

We went over all the facts again. Dr. Williams agreed that there had been no human exposure to the bat.

“Do you know if the cat was vaccinated for rabies?” Dr. Williams asked.

I quickly scanned Sudie’s file. Luckily for the cat, it had a current rabies vaccine.

“The cat is current on its rabies vaccine,” I said.

“That’s good. It would have to be euthanized if it wasn’t,” Dr. Williams said. “It is recommended that you booster that vaccine now,”

“How many cases of rabies in bats do you see in Oregon?” I asked.

“We only see a handful of bats that test positive,” Dr. Williams said. “But we don’t test very many bats. About ten percent of the bats that we test are positive. But that doesn’t mean much. How many people just throw the bat in the garbage. To get an idea of a population incidence, we would need to capture and test a bunch of bats from around the state. The funds for that sort of process are not available. And we would have all sorts of bat lovers down on us for doing that. So, that’s not going to happen unless we were to get into a lot of human cases.”

We sent a message to the high school to have Sudie drop by the clinic after school.

I think she snuck out early because she was waiting to talk with me at three in the afternoon.

“The bat was positive for rabies,” I said. “Luckily, the cat was current on her vaccines, so the only thing we need to do is booster her rabies vaccine early. You, Frank, and the kids are fine, with no significant exposures.”

“Why were you asking about the kids being asleep?” Sudie asked.

“The public health folks consider it a rabies exposure if a bat is loose in the house with sleeping children,” I said. “If the bat is captured and tests negative, they are okay. If it tests positive, the kids have to get shots. If the bat escapes and is not tested, the kids must get shots if the public health folks know of the incident. Those shots are serious things. Some of the side effects, although very rare, can be serious. The problem is rabies is a fatal disease. So any possible exposure has to be taken seriously.”

“We had bats in the house all the time when we were kids,” Sudie said.

“So did we, Sudie,” I said. “We even kept a tennis racket in the upstairs bedroom for that reason. We were just lucky, I guess.”

Photo by Peter Scott on Pexels.