There are quite a few things about rabies that we do not usually know about. The first is that rabies is not necessarily transmitted only through dogs. Any mammal can be infected by the virus that causes rabies – bats, cats, foxes, dogs, etc. Even humans can be directly infected by the virus. It can also spread if the cattle at home are infected by chance. Rodents, rabbits, and squirrels are the animals that are not usually infected by the virus. The second such myth is that a dog develops rabies after it bites a person. It does not. A dog may bite a person for any number of reasons, one of them being if it is rabid. The reason why a dog is kept under observation for 10 days after it bites a person is to determine if it is showing any symptoms of rabies. This does not mean that the symptoms appear only after it bites the person. The dog would, in all possibility, be already showing the symptoms.