Mobile County Rabies Clinics Set for Three November Saturdays; Shots Are $15, Cash Only
The Mobile County Health Department will hold five low-cost rabies clinics on Nov. 7, 14 and 21 for dogs, cats and ferrets. Shots cost $15 per pet and must be paid in cash.
MOBILE, Ala. — Mobile County rabies clinics return for three Saturdays in November, giving owners of dogs, cats and ferrets five chances to get a one-year vaccination for $15 at stops in Mobile and Prichard, the Mobile County Health Department said.
Payment is by cash only, and all but one of the clinics will be drive-through events. The exception is the Nov. 21 stop at B&B Pet Stop, where the owners host the clinic “on the front porch” of the business.
November rabies clinic schedule
- Saturday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m. to noon: Little Flower Catholic School, 2103 Government St., Mobile
- Saturday, Nov. 14, 10 a.m. to noon: Mobile County Animal Shelter, 7665 Howells Ferry Road, Mobile
- Saturday, Nov. 14, 1 to 3 p.m.: Pet Supplies Plus, 803 Hillcrest Road, Mobile
- Saturday, Nov. 21, 9 a.m. to noon: Prichard Municipal Stadium parking lot, 222 Coach Harold Clark Drive, hosted by the Prichard Animal Shelter
- Saturday, Nov. 21, 1 to 3 p.m.: B&B Pet Stop, 5035 Cottage Hill Road, Mobile
The calendar is a bit shorter than recent months. South AL News reported six clinics on the October schedule and seven in September. B&B Pet Stop, which was not on the October calendar, is back this month, while stops in St. Elmo and Irvington from October are not on the November list.
Why the county holds the clinics
The health department holds the clinics monthly because the state assigns local health departments the job of keeping rabies vaccinations affordable for pet owners. Rabies vaccination is required for dogs, cats and ferrets in Mobile County under local ordinance, and state law also requires it across Alabama.
The department’s monthly numbers show steady use. Its Rabies Officer gave 319 shots in October, 246 to dogs and 73 to cats. That compares with 334 in September, when 274 dogs and 60 cats were vaccinated, and 264 in August.
In all of 2025, the officer vaccinated 3,261 household pets: 2,585 dogs, 675 cats and one ferret.
Keeping a pet current can also matter after a bite. South AL News has reported that a vaccinated pet that bites someone, or is bitten by a wild animal, faces far less restrictive quarantine requirements than an unvaccinated one. The Alabama Department of Public Health offers a Rabies Quarantine Fact Sheet with more information.
What rabies does
Rabies is a virus that attacks the central nervous system. All warm-blooded mammals, people included, can get it, and it passes to humans from infected mammals. Once symptoms appear, the health department says, it is fatal.
According to the department, symptoms can include:
- Unusual behavior and irritability
- Headache and fever
- Inability to eat or drink
- Balance problems and circling
- Seizures and coma, followed by death
“Rabies is almost 100 percent preventable, yet it remains nearly 100 percent fatal once symptoms appear,” Dr. Kevin Michaels, Mobile County’s health officer, said in September as the department marked World Rabies Day. “When families, clinicians, and community partners work together to keep pets vaccinated and respond quickly to animal bites, we can stop rabies before it starts and protect everyone in our community.”
Bat cases raised concern in Baldwin County
The clinics come weeks after a cluster of bat encounters across Mobile Bay drew attention to the disease. In October, doctors at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope said they treated six patients in a single week who had been bitten by or exposed to bats, and North Baldwin Infirmary in Bay Minette reported one more.
The Alabama Department of Public Health issued a statewide warning about the Baldwin County cases, saying people bitten at separate homes were receiving post-exposure treatment. None of the bats were submitted for testing, the department said, which is why the patients had to be treated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports fewer than 10 human rabies deaths a year in the United States, with bats responsible for most of them, and estimates about 100,000 Americans receive post-exposure treatment each year. In Alabama, state health officials track a raccoon variant and a bat variant of the virus, and raccoons account for most of the state’s cases each year.
