If i had the patience to have a dog, I would find something like a
rat terrier to be my kind of dog.

Of the last three cats, we've had:

Mrs Emma Peel (deceased) was a devoted murderer. Small and furry she was
an outside cat (before i became a birder) and regularly killed large rats.
She was an exceptional hunter, who preferred rats to birds.

Leonardo was a wanna be, and I never confirmed that he personally killed
any rats. Did get a mouse once.

Our present monster, Bargello, is a superb hunter who, after eating part
of his first rat, found they made him sick. He still hunts them, but he no
longer kills them, he brings them upstairs to play with, which does
not endear him to his humans.

My experience overall has been that quite a few cats are good rat hunters.
I suspect they do not take on the really big rats, but they seem
to do the job.

Also, since i put up a finemeshed screen collector to hang below my
seed feeder, rat and squirrel attendance has dropped noticeably.

Douglas F. Daily
ddaily at u.washington.edu
Facilities Services Business Office
Phone: 221-4357
Box 352215
Seattle WA 98195