Portales girl survives rabid fox

PORTALES - Rylee Ainsworth is a little shaken, but doing well after a rabid fox bit her on the ankle Thursday morning in her backyard outside Portales.

Rylee, who turns 5 next week, is taking rabies shots for the next few weeks after a gray male fox bit her twice, said her father, Ryan Ainsworth.

"She still kind of doesn't want to go outside. It scared her," he said. "The fox literally had her by the ankle and was trying to drag her back like he was trying to take her and go eat her."

Ainsworth said he heard his dogs "going crazy" around 9:30 a.m. Thursday and first thought it was a couple of mean wildcats giving his dachshund grief - a common enough occurrence at their house four miles south of Portales.

Rylee said she saw what looked like a big gray cat. Then she began screaming, and her dad rounded the corner in their backyard to find a fox on the attack.

"(The fox) let go and ran off," Ainsworth said. "I scooped her up and brought her back in the house and cleaned her wounds."

Ainsworth said he brought Rylee to Portales Medical Clinic where "they swabbed (her wounds) with iodine and sent us home."

Then Ainsworth found the fox burrowed in a large shipping container in his backyard and shot it dead. Roosevelt County sent over a deputy who took away the dead animal, which Ainsworth said was so large it could barely fit in a tall kitchen trash bag.

Ainsworth said the fox was frozen and sent for analysis; results Friday showed it tested positive for rabies.

Rylee is enduring a five-week regime for five rabies' shots.

"The lucky thing is that they got this fox, they found it is positive (for rabies) and this child can go through the treatment," said Clovis Zoo Assistant Director Mark Yannotti. "You can die without proper treatment. (Rabies) is bad news for people."

Yannotti said he's learned from his 30 years in the zoo business what a "dangerous, dangerous thing" rabies can be. The disease can be transmitted even without a bite, if the saliva of an infected animal contacts an open wound on a human.

In this area, the key animals to watch out for are foxes, skunks and raccoons, he said.

"All of those you just approach them as 'Yes, it's got something'," he said. "You don't mess with them. You stay away from them. Most of those animals are nocturnal normally, which means if they're out in the daytime it's a good indication that you don't need to be near that animal. If it's wildlife, leave it alone."

Ainsworth said he was glad the situation Thursday was handled quickly, but he hopes no one else has an encounter like his daughter experienced.

"She'll get over it I'm sure, but I just hate it for her," he said. "Maybe we can keep somebody else from being bit."