Will Falconer, DVM Moderator
Wow, several thoughts. First, you are smarter than your health department, from the sounds of it: this was highly likely NOT a bite because of rabies. This is a bite from a badly behaved dog who got interrupted while fighting with another dog.
Second, if you can put your foot down to resist the shots (not in the belly, not painful any longer, but vaccines are best avoided if you value your long term health), I'd refuse them. Surely you can see they are not going to help you or protect your from a disease that's not there.
Third, you're likely to need serious work to your hand, agreed. If you can, I'd also hire (out of pocket, I'm afraid) a homeopathic practitioner to help hasten the healing.
And finally, it's important for everyone reading this to know that the dog being "out of date" on rabies vaccines has nothing to do with the determination of whether or not a bitten person gets recommended to get PEP (post exposure prophylaxis). That decision is based on the likelihood of the biter to be rabid. If this behavior on the dog's part was unheard of until recently, that's a stronger argument that the bite may have been caused by rabies. Nothing in the history suggests this.
Maybe finally finally: you may need a lawyer to help you through this. Lot of complications to deal with and a big dollop of ignorance on the part of your local health dept. Best of luck, Taylor. Nothing easy about getting out of this unscathed.