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The Sheepers

@theubersheep / theubersheep.tumblr.com

Just a broke(n) ace lesbian in her 30s. I reblog/post a bunch of random stuff that tickles my fancy. Don't be surprised if I disappear, I do that a lot.
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doberbutts

Man but the notes on that post really are just tumblr showing they have no idea how anything works.

"report to your local animal abuse people not to cops" local animal abuse people would be animal control. Animal control officers are cops.

"rabies is treatable if you go to the doctor right after the bite" rabies is PREVENTABLE, not treatable. There is no cure for rabies. If you suspect you came into contact with a rabid animal, you need to get a series of rabies vaccinations to prevent the virus from taking over your body. This is not a treatment and it only works if you go right away. If you show any symptoms of rabies it is too late.

"rabies is fatal in animals but treatable in humans" rabies has a 100% fatality rate and is not considered a survivable disease at this point in time. If you contract rabies YOU WILL DIE. The "treatment" in humans is called the Milwaukee Protocol, only 14% of people survive it, and it leaves you with massive brain damage and effectively turns you into a vegetable. You do not return to a normal life afterwards. Very few people who have undergone this process are capable of doing more than laying in a hospital bed and eating and breathing through tubes. To my knowledge only one person was able to live a semi-normal life after years and years of ongoing therapy and was not expected to have made it even through her first year after treatment.

I cannot stress enough how rabies is unlike any other disease you may be thinking of. It's required on a federal level in this country to vaccinate pretty much any domestic animal that comes into contact with wildlife for one reason and one reason only: it is not considered possible to cure rabies and the spread of disease would threaten all mammalian life including our own if allowed to continue to propagate.

Didn't expect this post to blow up so much but to clarify:

Yes, some small town animal control folks aren't cops. However, they all work very closely with police when it comes to seizing animals from owners, issuing fines, etc. They might not technically have a gun and a badge in every city, but rest assured, they are still also technically a branch of law enforcement. The difference is splitting hairs imo.

What inspired this post were the notes on a different post about anti-vaxxers not wanting to vaccinate their dogs for rabies. Most of these notes were in agreement that anti-vaxxers are in the wrong. HOWEVER most of these notes also sorely sorely sorely misunderstood exactly how dangerous rabies is.

Unfortunately now this post has some of those same notes:

Rabies is not rare in the US. The only reason for anyone living here to think that is because they do not have a lot of contact with wild animals and do not work in vet medicine.

Yes, you are more likely to get rabies from a wild animal (bats, skunks, raccoons, and foxes are the most common) however when it comes to unvaccinated domesticated animals, dogs, cattle, and cats make up 90% of rabies cases. So yes, be very cautious about any bite or scratch from a stray dog or outdoor cat. The only reason it is less common for domesticated animals to spread it than wild animals is because rabies comes from contact with other rabid animals, so it is more likely that wild animals will have contact with rabies than domesticated which are typically hanging out with humans (which are, thankfully, largely not rabid). Dogs are the #1 rabies vector worldwide, it is only in countries with robust vaccination protocols and dog-owning culture that keeps them inside most of the time that the risk transfers mostly to bats. The majority of human rabies-related deaths are caused by bites from stray or outdoor dogs.

Animals who are suspected to have rabies are killed, decapitated, and their brains destroyed in the process of testing for rabies. There is no other way to test for rabies. "Nooooo the poor doggo :(" and "it's not the dog's fault the owner sucks" sure but consider: rabies testing requires biopsies of the brain and brain stem, aka punching holes in the tissue in order to examine the changes on a microscopic level. That's uh. Not survivable. There is no other way to detect rabies in an animal. It doesn't live in the bloodstream, it just uses it as a highway to zip up to the brain and then starts doing its thing. Even though it is spread via saliva, blood, and brain matter, we have yet to be able to reliably detect it in rabid animals in anything but the last. (it is detectable in the first two but only at the late stages, well after the animal has become infectious and when it is obvious to anyone who has seen a rabid animal before that the animal is rabid)

It is not required on a federal level for all domesticated animals to have a current rabies vaccine- unless said domesticated animal came into contact with a wild animal known to be a rabies vector, at which point the CDC gets to decide and not the individual state. To me this is a really stupid rule because imo all of the continental US and Alaska should be vaccinating for rabies (Hawai'i and other island nations we've colonized don't need to if they've wiped out rabies or never had it spread, though import laws are super strict in those areas on purpose as a result) and if the dog or cat has a fight with a wild animal or a Mysterious Bite Wound the owner's just gunna be told to vaccinate anyway except now they have a lengthy quarantine ahead of them so we might as well just do it in advance everywhere.

So I've gotten a couple of these based on this post and respectfully? I don't think you're understanding the severity of the damage rabies leaves behind, which is why the Milwaukee Protocol is not considered effective treatment.

29 people to date have survived the Milwaukee Protocol. Of those 29, 28 of them are still in their medically induced comas or in a similar vegetative state or have passed away due to other causes. There is brain activity, so they aren't braindead. The majority of them are not awake either and have not been for years and are not expected to ever wake up. They *might* dream, but they show no signs other than some mild activity on brain scans of being sentient anymore. It is debateable whether they are actually alive or if they are a step above braindead and teetering on the edge.

Of those 29 survivors, 1 of them was able to return to full conciousness. The fact that she survived by itself is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that she was capable of being more than a still body hooked to machines is a medical marvel. She is permenantly disabled. It took years- decades- of ongoing therapy after she woke up to get where she is now and she has spoken about how difficult the journey was and how lucky she is to not be like the remaining 28 survivors. Because that's what it came down to. Luck. She was never expected to survive let alone wake up.

This is also why rabies is not considered a survivable disease. The other 28 survivors are barely registering enough brain activity to be considered "alive". No motor functions, no higher thought, no communication, no voluntary muscle movement, no control over your background functions, no awareness of their surroundings, nothing. We keep them alive because of the very, very slight chance that they'll wake up and be able to be like Jeanna Giese. A few have woken, but none have shown the recovery she did. They have yet to be able to reproduce this success.

And- don't get me wrong, Jeanna is still disabled and shows many symptoms of extensive brain damage. She leans and lists to one side when she moves. Her speech is slow and slurred. She has trouble with overstimulation and with processing new stimuli. I have brain damage too- those are my symptoms as well. She is still considered to be capable of living a normal life, just like I can, as long as accessibility is an option.

Rabies is considered 100% fatal because Jeanna Giese is a fluke. And until we figure out why it worked for her and has yet to work for anyone else, she will continue to be considered a fluke. The closest anyone's gotten was a little girl who could move her fingers and blink voluntarily. They weren't able to communicate with her and she didn't recover further because she died from pneumonia she caught in the hospital that was treating her for rabies. There was also a little boy who woke but shortly after began to seize and eventually the seizures cooked the rest of his working brain. I do believe he is still alive but in that aforementioned vegetative state. Those who study the disease still consider Giese to be the only actual survivor.

This was Jeanna before she recovered. Of the other 28 survivors that are still alive, this is still the state they're in.

When I say you don't return to a normal life, this is what I mean. This is the rest of your life IF you survive the Milwaukee Protocol, which again, only has worked 14% of the time. Forever. You're not awake. You're not moving. You're not aware of anything. Your body is kept alive while doctors try to figure out why she woke up and you didn't. This is what "surviving rabies" looks like.

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hirosensei

Why don't we get preventive vaccinations for rabies? Why are they only given to humans after being bit?

We do! People who are considered "high risk" for contact with rabid animals (vet staff, zoo staff, park rangers, wildlife biologists, etc) often are given preventative vaccination and this is seen as effective 99% of the time (with the 1% being when incomplete vaccination schedule occurs).

We are not vaccinated as a general population because it is expensive and painful- most of these people who are vaccinated as a preventative have their jobs pay for it, and it is relatively unpleasant in regards to side effects. In most cases, it is considered enough to teach humans not to touch or play with animals that they cannot confirm vaccine status.

In Jeanna's case, she was playing with a wild bat she'd caught. The little girl who died of pneumonia was bitten by a stray cat she grabbed. And I think the little boy was bitten by a stray dog that approached him. More than half of rabies cases in humans are children who were playing with unknown animals they managed to catch. It's important to note that there is "dumb rabies" and "rage rabies"- a rabid animal in the "dumb rabies" state is easily caught by children, and sometimes will even approach humans on its own. Children often love animals and are delighted to be approached by an animal or to be able to catch a previously-uncatchable animal (Jeanna still loves bats, after all) so the danger is only able to be mitigated by seriously teaching children how dangerous even "nice" wild animals can be.

Incredibly topical that this came back up in my notes because at work we just had a vaccinated indoor/outdoor cat come home with a gigantic abscess in its side and since it's a Mysterious Bite Wound they have to either quarantine at home for 6 months or they have to euthanize the cat and send the head for testing. That's for a VACCINATED animal. If it wasn't vaccinated it would need to be quarantined in the hands of animal control (at owner's expense of course) and euthanized at the first sign of aggression or neurological deterioration, or just euthanized and sent for testing. Obviously they chose to quarantine at home but that is how serious rabies is taken even when animals have their vaccines.

At my previous clinic we had an unvaccinated and highly aggressive cat come in and I (and anyone else not rabies vaccinated) was banished from the entire chunk of the hospital where the cat would be receiving treatment Just In Case.

I'm just front desk staff so while I have some vet assistant training I only do the low risk stuff like pulling quills and sucking goop out of c-section puppies if I'm not actually at the desk, and as a result I'm not rabies vaccinated. At my new clinic, this may change, because of the way Fear Free works the entire staff is pretty hands on with all patients so my job pays for vaccination for all employees. Once I hit 90 days of employment and they decide whether they're keeping me, they'll chat about all that stuff with me.

(Check the notes for some corrections to my previous reblogs- like Jeanna actually rescuing a confused bat from church vs playing with it, and more!)

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“Nobody’s going to want to sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours to get from New York City to LA.”

Me. I will sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours. I’ll sit on it for days. I’ll write and read and nap and eat and then do it all over again. I’ll stare out the windows and see America from ground level and not have to drive. I’ll see the Rockies and the deserts and cornfields and the Mississippi River and your house and yours and yours too. I’ll make up stories in my head about the small towns I see as we go along. I’ll see the states I’ve yet to see because driving or flying there is a fucking slog and expensive to boot. I’ll enjoy the ride as much as the destination. And then I’ll do it all over again to come the fuck home.

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reblogged

“Oh boo hoo you shouldn’t ask your friends for favors we’re all adults”

I just spent three hours pulling up carpet and staples for a friend’s home renovation and we all did nothing but chat and joke and have wonderful conversation the whole time.

Helping somebody move or renovate or giving them a ride to the airport is functionally the same as going mini-golfing or playing a board game: it’s an activity that you do that is made more fun by having good company, and which provides something to talk about when the conversation lulls.

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krudman
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yiffmaster

“Shared joy is double joy, but shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”

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minteehell

Leah with her flower dance outfit,,

she can definitely crush me with those big strong arms.

Also, my posts will be a bit slow this and next month, I have to focus on finals and my other uni projects. But I will be active reblogging sdv content!

Original (by Cdzfit on tiktok!)

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Everyone wanted to be thicc but nobody wanted to be fat. Everyone wanted the dad bod but nobody wanted to be fat. Everyone wants fat mommy milkers but nobody wants mommy to be fat. Everyone wants to be a bear but not like, an actual fat bear. You get what i’m saying

Everyone wants the mistique of fatness or use the language of fatness to denote hotness without actually being fat or acknowledging that fat people or fatness can just be hot.

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fuck it, Toshiro Mifune fancam set to Kate Bush

hey op, what’s it like being a goddamned genius?

every so often, someone reblogs this from me and not OP (hi @majortomwaits!) and i get to look through the notes before i go cry bc mifune was So Handsome. highlights include:

  • young folk who have never beheld him discovering his beauty
  • lesbians and straight men saying “if i had to pick a dude”
  • wailing and gnashing of teeth, generally
  • “this was BEFORE stranger things, the vibes are that strong”
  • (My New Favorite) HE IS SO GENDER (y'all are so right, the man Performed Masculinity like no other, but then The Vulnerability)
  • agreeing with me that OP has the biggest, juiciest brain ever
  • Lucas wanted him for Obi-Wan Kenobi *rolling in the deep plays in the background*
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