Introduction
I’d be lying
if I said it never crossed my mind to knock off this rat. The first time I saw it, I threw a shoe at
it. There was no moral dilemma here,
because I knew full well I had no chance of actually hitting it—my arm isn’t
that good. I just hoped to scare it
off. Well, it scurried out of the way,
but didn’t even leave the yard. I
fetched the shoe and tried again, and this time it left, but only for awhile. This technique may work on housecats, but
only because they have very little to gain from being in your yard. A rat is of course totally unfazed, which is
just one more reason we don’t like them.
We humans are accustomed to striking terror into the hearts of lesser
beasts, and when we don’t, it’s natural to feel offended.
I’m
disinclined to make sweeping moral statements about man’s right to kill
animals, because I eat meat and wear leather shoes. (Though a vegan can claim higher ground, he may
be a bit of a hypocrite if he puts flea medicine on his cat, allows countless
insects to splat on his windshield, or subsists on an agriculture that surely
disrupts habitats, displacing all manner of wildlife.) Obviously I have no problem with killing
animals, but I also don’t believe it’s okay to be cruel. (This means, of course, that I have to eat
organic eggs, organic chicken, and
grass-fed beef. The package of some beef
I bought recently said not only that it was organic, local, and grass-fed, but
that the cows were encouraged to socialize.
Hell, I was never encouraged
to socialize. Those cows may have had a
better life than I have!)
I have
killed one rodent in my life. This was
back in the ‘90s. I was sharing a tiny
apartment in San Francisco with my wife.
Upon discovering a mouse, she jumped up on a chair, shrieking and
flapping her arms. After I recovered
from my laughing fit, I went to the hardware store and bought a trap. I think it was marketed as a non-cruel trap,
as it had no spring. But it worked by
trapping the mouse’s feet in goo. This
ended up being cruel because the mouse would have worked itself to death trying
to escape. Its piteous squeaking got to
me, and I put it out of its misery via swift, blunt force.
Cruelty, ethics, and affectation
I took a
trip to Boulder, my hometown, recently and while I was there I fell into
conversation with a very interesting blue-collar guy. (I’ll call him G—.) G— has a friend who runs a coffee shop. This friend (I’ll call her F—) is dog-friendly—she
even has a water dish on the premises for dogs—but she freaked out when a rat
showed up. So she poisoned it. Per the directions on the poison, she removed
the doggie dish, because if a poisoned rat can find water, it’ll drink enough
to dilute the poison and will live. This
rat staggered out into an alley, where some college kids found it.
For the sake
of the story, let’s assume—because it’s how this was described to me—that these
were silly trust fund kids taking a break from their drum circle. They gathered around trying to rescue the
rat, but weren’t sure what to do, other than blow the smoke from their
medicinal marijuana in its face. (Okay,
I made that part up.) F— was afraid
they’d bring the rat into her shop and ask for water, which would put her in an
awkward position. So she called G—. He showed up and wasn’t sure what to do
either. Fortunately for him, the rat
soon entered its death throes, at which point G— went into the shop and fetched
a broom and dustpan. When he returned to
the alley the rat was dead, and the trustafarians were standing over it looking
grief-stricken. G— asked, “Are you guys
done with that rat?” and then, getting no response, swept it into the dustpan
and chucked it in the dumpster. Whether
or not G— was callous enough to poison a rat himself, he evidently couldn’t
resist the temptation to tweak the do-gooders.
I try to be
good, but I also try not to be sanctimonious.
For example, I quietly forego pâté de foie gras, because I’ve heard
horror stories of how its producers force-feed geese to enlarge their livers—but
I acknowledge inwardly that, pâté being expensive and not that tasty anyway,
it’s an easy enough thing to boycott. And
I haven’t joined any campaign against pâté, because a) I’m a busy guy and can’t
chase down every societal ill I come across, and b) given the widespread
knowledge of the hellish conditions facing factory-farmed cows, pigs, and
chickens—which everybody eats—doesn’t it seem odd that there’s such an outcry
against a food so expensive that practically nobody eats it?
Rationalizing rat-icide
Getting back
to whether or not to kill this rat: if I
decided to let it be, might I not feel pretty stupid if it bit one of my kids
and gave her a terrible disease? Perhaps. But before using my kids as an excuse to rid
my home of vermin, I should really do some research. After all, many a Marin County parent would
look pretty stupid applying such rationale, because so many of them are creating
a much larger risk by refusing to vaccinate their kids against terrible diseases that—far more recently than the bubonic plague—have
been epidemics.
I could
argue that, my own kids having been vaccinated, killing this rat is just taking
the next step to prevent the spread of disease.
But then I’d have to admit that I know nothing about the rate of disease
in rats versus squirrels, and can’t be bothered to research it. A squirrel has been raiding our bird feeder
for months, but he’s a cute fellow with a big bushy tail, and it’s fun to watch
him climb straight down the string toward the feeder, and we wouldn’t dream of
killing him. The fact is, squirrel and
rat behaviors are roughly the same, whereas the rat alone is icky—and that’s highly
questionable justification for rubbing him out.
The elegant solution
Of course
there’s a very simple solution to this problem:
the cat. Except in the case of
toxoplasmosis, a rat will generally avoid a cat’s hunting ground, and our cat
is probably why our backyard has been rat-free for so long. But perhaps this rat is smart enough to
realize, having had hundreds of opportunities to witness our cat’s laziness,
that she doesn’t pose the slightest threat.
So the last
time I saw the rat, I ran inside and grabbed Misha. I brought her outside, hoping the rat would
still be there. It was. I set Misha down about four feet away and
she’s either totally blind and unable to smell, or simply has zero interest in
hunting. She didn’t make a single move
toward that rat, which trotted away with what seemed like an annoying air of joie-de-vivre. Misha then plopped herself down on the warm
flagstones to relax. I snapped this
photo moments later.
So, as far
as removing pests, Misha is worthless.
Many argue that all cats are
useless. Of course I disagree; a cat is
very elegant, and nice to have on your lap or in your bed. But as easy as cats are to keep, their
companionship has a price. As I sit here
typing, Misha is meowing her head off for her dinner. Plus, I have the ongoing ritual of fishing
her turds and clumped-up urine balls out of the cat box. At night she sometimes scratches at the
door. When we go on vacation we have to get somebody to look
after her.
The rat,
meanwhile, is utterly self-sufficient and quiet. If I can get past that tail, and its
classification as filthy vermin, and start to look upon it as a pet, maybe my
problem will be solved.
Conclusion
Do you smell a rat? Because I don’t. All I smell is the cat box.
Epilogue: Our hero!
Well, less than a day after I originally posted this, the rat ordeal is over. It seems I have greatly underestimated Misha, our 14-year-old cat, and I owe her an apology. Her finest hour came this afternoon:
She was so proud. She paraded the rat around, bringing it to every door hoping to be let in so she could take a victory lap around the house. Honestly, I didn't think she had it in her! I guess that rat didn’t either....
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