Will Falconer, DVM Moderator
First, the easiest answer, Catherine: FIRE THAT VET! That's utter lameness and actual malpractice if you bring a sick animal for treatment and they refuse w/o vaccinating! Every vaccine, rabies included, is only for use in the healthy animal.
"They might get bit." Yeah. And?
What's the logic there, exactly? If they give a rabies shot on the spot and then get bit, they won't get rabies? Or your animal is rabid until it gets that next shot and then it no longer is???
If you continue to give money to crazy practices like this, they go on damaging animals. It's up to each one of you, dear readers, to vote with your pocketbooks. This is the only way to effect change on a grand scale. Anyone with thinking like this deserves not another nickel from you.