Seaside man receiving rabies treatment after attack by rabid skunk.

As the sun went down and temperatures dropped on Dec. 3, Jon Bui and his two dogs were headed home after one of their regular walks through the former Fort Ord.

Around 5:30pm, they were on the road near the trailhead at 8th Avenue and Gigling Street when Zena, one of his two Pit Bull mixes, came upon a skunk. The pair started to fight and tumbled down the hill on the side of the road.

“I don’t know if she saw the skunk first or vice-versa, but they got into it,” says Bui. “The skunk bit Zena and would not release from her neck.”

Bui chased them and eventually was able to grab the animals, but the skunk scratched him numerous times on his left forearm during the fight. Bui carries a pocket knife and used it to separate the animals.

“I stabbed the skunk in the heart and cut its throat,” he says.

A man parked near Bui offered him a cardboard box for the skunk. Bui put it in the box and stopped at the nearby Presidio of Monterey Police Department and wrapped the skunk in a trash bag. When he got to his Seaside home, Bui says he put the skunk on ice to best preserve its brain for the county Health Department in order to check for rabies.

Seaside Animal Control picked the chilled skunk up the next morning.

The skunk’s brain tested positive for rabies. Later that night, on Dec. 4, Bui received a call from the Monterey County Department of Health advising him to go to emergency room in order to get rabies shots. He has been getting rabies shots since the incident and Zena has to be quarantined for 30 days.

“I feel fine, but frustrated,” says Bui. “I would love to see signs up there to warn other people.”

Karen Smith, Public Information Officer for the Monterey County Department of Health says there is no need to post anything about the attack.

“It’s something we should take into consideration, but rabies has been enzootic, meaning it’s something that is always around,” she says. “We encourage anyone who is bit or has a pet bitten to assume the animal is rabid until proven otherwise.”

According to Smith, from January 1 to July 31 of 2015, 178 people were bitten by animals. Of those bitten, nine were from wild animals, defined as any animal not a cat or dog.

In the last 25 years, Smith says no human has tested positive for rabies in Monterey County and the last rabies-related fatality in California was 2011.

However, Smith says the Health Department is concerned after one case of rabies was found in a house cat in Monterey this past July and a pet dog in North County contracted the virus in 2012.

“Prior to 2012, rabies had not been diagnosed in domesticated animals in this county in over 30 years,” says Smith.