On the way to the meadow

My big excitement began as I started walking the dogs down to the meadow.  Right out in front of the house, across from the driveway, is our birdfeeder.  The feeder attracts both birds and squirrels, and that makes Gambol and Buddy eager to race out of the house to the feeder to chase the offending critters away.  The squirrels are pretty adept at running away and up into the trees before the dogs can get to them, but there was a glaze of ice on top of the 2 inches of snow and this time the squirrels were having a hard time gaining traction.  The dogs were able to head off one squirrel and Gambol was able to catch it before it got away and tried to climb up a nearby tree.  Apparently Gambol injured the squirrel’s leg and it was not able to stay on the tree, so it hopped back on the ground and the chase was on, again.  Gambol chased the squirrel back and forth a couple of times between two trees; each time the squirrel was able to get up the tree, it jumped back down to the ground.  Finally Gambol caught the squirrel and gave it several hard shakes.  
I assumed he had killed the squirrel and called Gambol over to give me the squirrel.  Gambol was proud to trot over with his head held high, the squirrel in his mouth.  When Gambol was at my side, I could see that the squirrel was still alive, so I tried to get the squirrel out of Gambol’s mouth to dispatch the squirrel.  I got Gambol to give me the squirrel, but as I took it out of his mouth, the squirrel bit me on the left index finger, a 0.25 inches long, 0.25 inches deep puncture wound.  Squirrels’ teeth are very sharp!  Gambol is current on his rabies shots, but I'm not, so off I went for a 4 hour adventure at the local Emergency Room for a tetanus shot, to the dogs' vet to drop off the now deceased squirrel for rabies testing at the county Board of Health (because of their small size, squirrels usually die quickly of rabies, so the risk of getting rabies from a squirrel is very low). However in an abundance of caution, since it is my ass on the line, we are going to have the squirrel tested. 
Finally, I had to stop off at Target to get a prescription for an antibiotic that I have to take for the next 5 days. Whew, that blew a hole in my afternoon!  

Update:
On Tuesday I had an exchange with the PA Department of Health regarding my wildlife bite report filed at the hospital.  They repeated the information I got at the hospital Emergency Room that transmission of rabies from squirrels is very rare, but it was a good idea to get the animal tested, just to be sure.  The vet told me they would be sending the squirrel for testing on Tuesday, so the results should be available in 24-48 hours.  The Department of Health will contact me (or, if I get the test results first, I will contact them) just to make sure everyone is on the same page.  With any luck, I should be assured that I don’t need the rabies shot series by Thursday.  

Update 2:

Got the mailed report from the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System, The Pennsylvania State University (PADLS-PSU).   With the negative results, no rabies shot series for me.  Hurray.