I love it!

Years ago, my former technician's father complained of a rat epidemic in his barn. His daughter (my tech) told him not to worry, she could take care of it without shooting or poison.

Several weeks later she asked her father if his rat problem had improved.

He said it had, most definitely! But now he had lots of snakes in his barn!

Yes, my tech had found a solution. And yes, it involved snakes . . .

True story.

I've seen some of those rat terriers at work.
they can mow down a pile of rats in 4-5 minutes that would make an argentine dove hunt look like low numbers.

A few years ago we were given a dog.

A cross breed, by a family that had him and were moving to an apartment where dogs are not allowed.

He runs around our yard, and is an absolute death on any stray cats that come in.

He kills them and buries them!!

He comes into my workshop when I am working there, and I give him a some milk, which he loves.

His name is SOCKS!

I grew up with Jack Russells and Jagd terriers. They make quick work of mice, rats, cats, coons, pretty much anything with fur.

There are a lot of rat versus rat dog videos on youtube. The dogs always win.

I used to shoot on a farm near me with a grain store which was a barn lined with bales, huge mountain of grain in the middle.

Opening the door at night and shining a torch on it the grain pile was black with hundreds of rats.

I used to go up there at night with an air gun and night vision to shoot them in the barn and surrounding unused buildings. In the buildings they were running around above head level, in and out of holes in the floor, everywhere. I got 97 one night a ran out of pellets.

The farmer eventually cleared out the barn and had a pack of terriers there. As he lifted the bales away the rats came flooding out and the dogs went nuts and had great fun.

Had a neighbor who love coon hunting. He had 6 dogs in a large pen and finally got tired of feeding as much food to the rats as he did the dogs.

He asked me and my buddy to help kill some rats one day. He took the dogs out and stuck a water hose in the rat holes. My buddy and I stood on top of the dog houses and with a pocket of 22’s we began the “rat shoot”. It was hectic, but very fun.

friend of mine had a Jack Russell terrorist. my friend would bring his dog out to the jobsite on Saturdays and it would hunt and catch everything on the site. I was amazed at how much energy that little dog had. He brought back a few rabbits that were almost as big as he was. How he caught them I have no clue.

The video on YouTube is amazing on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Pyu-Cj0gg

The best 20 minutes I have spent recently - watching this.

I had a smaller rat terrier as a teen. She didn't have much to hunt. If a snake came into her yard she would kill it. The first time I was appalled at the sight of a red blood stripe on her but found no wounds. Then it dawned on me what happened. There were some smallish garter snakes in the fence line and she would kill them. The look of satisfaction on a doggie face was cool. Be Well, Packy.

Some dogs are hell on rats. As a point of interest in the middle ages, cats were reviled as being evil creatures associated with witches, etc. + were being killed in droves. Guess what happened? With all the cats gone the rats took over + started the bubonic plague.

I agree on that piece of history. Be Well, Packy.

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Saeed - a great post but I still don't get why your read the Mail, especially the online version. Its so anti hunting and crap journalism. But as you have said before - entertaining!

Ratting goes back hundreds of years. It was very much a "working class" sport with "rat pits" where bets were placed on dogs v rats. There are records of single terriers killing fifty / sixty plus rats in two to three minutes!

Still very much a "northern sport" today with terrier bloodlines going back decades specializing on rats!

Agree, a great way to solve a problem without the use of poison or fumigation!

And great sport too!


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Those dogs sure have a lotta fun chasing and
killing the rats. Amusing to watch.

Whoever posted these links, Thank you!
It's made my evening enjoyable for a change.

We used to shoot them at the dump as teens. Damn wonder some of us didn't get shot too.
George

I hunted rats at the dump as a teen also---at night. A friend had a 53 Ford (rounded front fenders). Two guys would sit on the fenders straddling the headlights. We would pull up to a garbage pile with the lights out, stop, then turn on the headlights. Shooting fast and furious till all the rats were dead or hiding. We then would head over to the next pile.

BOY DO I WISH THE DUMP WAS STILL THERE !!!

Hip