Oh wow. Where are you if you don’t mind me asking?
I have never skipped rabies vaccination and it is a requirement AFAIK in every boarding barn I’ve been involved in. I’ve turned away potential boarders because they don’t do it annually.
However… rabies has a presence here. A side tangent – years ago my vet/chiro told me about a client horse she was treating that presented as dull and off his feed. She knows I keep up-to-date as much as I can with veterinarian advances, and I’m always fascinated in her cases, so she shares what she feels is appropriate without naming names. She was telling me about the diagnostics she’d done. At first they were worried it might be tooth or mouth related, so they ruled that out first. They scoped him and treated him as if he might have an impaction, although she didn’t feel anything or see anything. She said they pulled bloodwork for lyme, and did a few other tests but couldn’t explain why he’d gone suddenly lethargic. I didn’t see her for a few weeks, but when I saw her again I asked her if she’d ever found out what was wrong with him. She said he tanked within a few days and became neurological, and the owner elected to PTS despite rads not showing anything conclusive. At that point they started thinking about rabies. They sent his head for testing and he came back positive, and he had been vaccinated against rabies.
I do see at least one rabid (wild) animal a year, mostly skunks. A few years ago AC had to come out to dispatch a skunk in my yard that was clearly rabid. It was heartbreaking, I felt so sorry for the poor thing.