As used in this chapter:
(1) "Carnivore" means a flesh-eating animal and includes those animals known to be reservoirs of rabies including, but not limited to, raccoons, foxes, skunks, and bobcats and related species including, but not limited to, coyotes, wolves, wolf dogs, weasels, civet cats, spotted skunks, and lynx or the offspring born to any combinations of crossbreeding between these wild animals and domestic dogs or cats.
(2) "Department" means the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, including county health departments.
(3) "Domesticated animal" means owned or stray cats, dogs, and ferrets or other animals for which there exists a rabies vaccine approved by the department and licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture.
(4) "Inoculation against rabies" means the injection, subcutaneously, intramuscularly or otherwise, of antirabic vaccine as approved by the department and by the United States Department of Agriculture.
(5) "Licensed veterinarian" means a person licensed by law to practice veterinary medicine in this State.
(6) "Owner" means any person who:
(a) has a right of property in a pet;
(b) keeps or harbors a pet or who has it in his care or acts as its custodian; or
(c) permits a pet to remain on or about any premises occupied by him.
(7) "Pet" means only domesticated cats, dogs, and ferrets.
(8) "Quarantine" means a prescribed, restricted confinement of a pet or other animal up to and including a state of enforced isolation. The quarantine is for the purpose of observation of the animal for signs or symptoms, or both, of rabies and for the prevention of potential rabies transmission by the animal to a person, other pets, or other animals. The location, conditions, and length of the quarantine must be prescribed by the department.
HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 6-122; 1952 Code Section 6-122; 1950 (46) 2406; 1969 (56) 803; 1971 (57) 301; 1979 Act No. 134 Section 1; 2002 Act No. 343, Section 1, eff July 3, 2002.