As the lone American on the TimeZoneOne - Christchurch team, I’d like to share one reason I like living in New Zealand: there is no rabies. That’s right, we can live without the paralyzing fear of contracting the paralyzing and deadly virus that is rabies.

FYI: Rabies (Latin: rabies, “madness, rage, fury” also “hydrophobia“) is a viralzoonotic neuroinvasive disease that causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain, that’s bad) in mammals. In non-vaccinated humans, rabies is almost invariably fatal after neurological symptoms have developed, but prompt post-exposure vaccination may prevent the virus from progressing. There are only six known cases of a person surviving symptomatic rabies, and only one known case of survival in which the patient received no rabies-specific treatment either before or after illness onset.

So if you live in New Zealand or plan on visiting and you run into a creature like this (see below), your first question should be “What is that God forsaken thing?” not “Will I catch rabies from that God forsaken thing?”

Dog?

Another side effect of a rabies free country is that cats, even kittens, can fight with dogs with the utmost of confidence that they can use their claws to their full effect and not risk getting dog cooties, aka rabies. The following video fully illustrates this confidence. The video is of our cat when she was only a couple months old fighting with abandon with our three year old Staffordshire Terrier/Labrador cross dog, one tough dog. She is fighting without her claws, I know, but notice the confidence in her eyes. They are friends after all.

 

If you aren’t dying to move here now, I’ll have to try something else I guess.

Mark