CDC reports worldwide deaths at 59,000. 95% of those deaths are in China and Africa according to wikipedia.

That leaves 3K deaths for the rest of the entire world. More people choke to death from eating than die from rabies, yet most locations have laws requiring you vaccinate all indoor pets. This is not about health.

Rabies is difficult to test for. Often only post-mortem brain tissue samples give an accurate test which brings into question the accuracy of even those low numbers above.

Old Yeller was a Walt Disney propaganda piece to influence public opinion in favor of vaccine laws in the 1950's. You can find a document here outlining the history of rabies in Texas. Search for the word "law" and you will see a narrative starting to build in the 50's decrying insufficient laws. This is all in the same time period of the book and movie. https://www.dshs.texas.gov/idcu/disease/rabies/history/historyInTexas.pdf

Does this tactic sound familiar? Yes it's true that the rabies scare was used to normalize vaccine requirement laws and generate massive amounts of revenue for pharma at the cost of the health of the pets that we love.