Her son fed goats at a petting zoo. Now he has to get rabies shots.

Three baby goats at a North Carolina petting zoo tested positive for rabies, sparking a statewide effort to track down everyone who interacted with the animals.

Last Friday, Rebecca Lanning got a shocking phone call: Her 4-year-old son had been exposed to rabies at a recent family outing.

Thirteen days earlier, on Aug. 15, the family had visited a dinosaur exhibit in Mocksville, North Carolina. There were food trucks, carnival games and a petting zoo, where her son fed baby goats by hand.

“I didn’t think anything of it until Friday, when his aunt called me and was like, ‘Hey, we have a situation,’” said Lanning, 30, of Marion. Lanning asked that her son not be named.

Three baby goats at the petting zoo had tested positive for rabies, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday. The goats, along with a fourth suspected of having the disease, had been euthanized.

A 4-year-old boy is one of the people who was exposed to rabies from petting zoo goats in North Carolina.Rebecca LanningLanning immediately rushed her son to the doctor, where he was given the first two of six shots of the rabies vaccine. The vaccinations are known as post-exposure prophylaxis, meaning they’re given to people after they may have been exposed to rabies to stop the virus in its tracks. Once symptoms of an infection begin, the disease — which attacks the brain and the spinal cord — is almost always fatal.