ShoresDog Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 What I'm a gonna do? Or, where's a Jack Russell terrier when you need him?! The last few days Juno has done sharp, sudden alarm barking followed by little growls in the kitchen and laundry room, and I was puzzled as to why since I didn't see anything, no raccoon in the yard, no visible deer outside, etc. I was starting to wonder if something was in her ear. Juno sleeps in her crate, which is in the kitchen. Well, last night, after midnight, Juno was alert barking. I took her outside to potty and she went back in and back to sleep. Twenty minutes later, barking again. This second time I responded, and I finally heard what was troubling her. A RAT!!! My landlady here should NOT be allowed to shop at Costco. She'd left a large opened box of dog biscuits on the floor in the laundry room, and it had a rat in it. I screwed up my one chance of getting the rat out of the house by not securing the lid tight enough before I tried to carry the box outside. The rat leaped up, practically in my face, and both Juno and I were STARTLED!! Both she and I believe he is under, or inside of the guts of, the stove. (Note to self: Don't plan to do any baking this summer.) I carried a large garbage bag of half-used, outdated food out to the garbage, but I'm at a loss as to what to do next. There is a RAT in here!!! And yes, I do know the difference between a rat and a mouse. Oy vay! I know that rat poison is extremely hazardous around dogs. Rat traps set in the house worry me because of the risk of nailing a curious dog's nose. I don't have my big cat with me here, unfortunately. This rat was not a huge one, maybe his body not counting tail was four or 4.5 inches long. The stove where we saw him go has a clearance of 4 inches from the floor, and it is 36 inches wide by 27 inches deep. Do you think it would be safe to set a rat trap under it, or could a dog lie on the floor and reach under to it and get nailed? One thing I will do is return the dog biscuit box to its place on the floor tonight, with a rat trap in it, after Juno and Daisy are both in crates or separated from the room where it is by closed/latched doors. Any other thoughts or ideas?? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urge to herd Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Yuck! Check at the local feed/farm supply store, find out if anyone does rat terrier work, where they'll come with one of those feisty little devil dogs and find/dispatch the rat. You could also bait the box and leave for a few hours during the day, with Juno and Daisy going along. If the house is quiet, more chance your guest will be out and cruising. Ruth n the BC3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaderBug Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 What about one of those sticky trap things?? btw, ICKY!!!! yeesh... I don't mind mice but rats and possums give me the heebie-jeebies... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pearse Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Leave out some foie gras, a nice chunk of Brie, a copy of Auguste Gusteau's cookbook, and directions to Mélisse (in LA) and he will leave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbc1963 Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Very Much Sympathy. I have had squirrels in my walls, mice in my basement ceiling, and bats in my attic. Infestation is a horrible thing. Since the exterminators came and put rat poison in my old condo, causing the squirrels to die in my walls in October (and slowly decay over the long winter, until the smell finally dissipated when I opened the windows in May!), I am a big believer in traps and the instant disposal of corpses. I get the occasional mouse in my house now, usually early in fall, and I set traps in places Buddy can't stick his nose: behind the washing maching, way under low furniture, etc.. Typically, I leave the traps in the basement, where the mice enter and where the dog never goes without me. To clean up, I do the inside-out, bag-on-hand, poop-scoopy maneuver. That way I don't have to touch, see, or think about what I am handling. (The cheap disposable traps are designed to be tossed whole.) Do you have a way to close off the room where the rat is living, so the dog can't get in there unsupervised? I think 4" clearance under the stove is high enough for you to set the rat trap but low enough to keep your dog out of there. If you're still worried, can you block off the door, and only set the trap at night when you and the dog don't need access? My experience was that the mice tended to get active late at night. Not sure if it's the same with rats. When I had to set traps in the utility room near my bedroom, the snapping of the traps would awaken me at about 2:30 each night. They were remarkably consistent. Childhood memory aside: When I was a kid, my mother found a rat in the garbage can in my backyard. She made my brother put the lid on the garbage can before he went to school. Then had to listen to the horrific dying screams of a trapped rat, slowly suffocating. It took hours. Avoid that method at all costs. Good luck. Mary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack & Co. Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 What about a good ol' Hav-a-Heart trap? I know you'll see it in there, but Hubby's job could be to relocate the creature. When my parents had a snake in their basement, an officer from the city's Animal Control division came out and caught it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nancy in AZ Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 snake? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack & Co. Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 snake? Hey, that's a great idea, Nancy! Jan, you should get a snake! I'll mail you a big black snake from North Carolina!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShoresDog Posted July 31, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Eeek, no thank you!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BustopherJones Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Have you considered a Rat Zapper? Rat Zapper Alternatively, a small box trap (readily available in many stores) would enable you to trap the rat humanely without posing a threat to your pets, and give you the option of releasing it in another (preferably non-inhabited) area. Choosing the right size will also allow you to use it for squirrels if they should become a problem. (We use a wire box trap to capture destructive squirrels, and relocate them to the woods around a reservoir several miles away.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devi Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Interestingly timed thread since I found a rat in my pantry last night. Yep-- I found it. Five dogs and three cats in this house and not one noticed. I took the bin I found it in outside and dumped it out... no luck. He was gone already. Which means he's somewhere in the house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenbo Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 Dumb Idea, Rat Trap??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachdogz Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 You can put the trap (even the mean kind) maybe in a cupboard (like at the bottom of your sink) and close the door or in the drawer at the bottom of the stove. You'd be amazed where they go and you don't know it (at least that's how it is with mice). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Journey Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 You need the little rescue I had earlier this year - Grace!! She not only catches them, she then devours them right before your eyes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack & Co. Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Jan, what's the latest on your critter? Did you catch it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShoresDog Posted August 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Strategic retreat! I moved Juno's crate into my bedroom, and decided to await the arrival of DH today. Rat Patrol this weekend! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dalesred Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Oh boy. My first question in my mind when I saw this thread was - is it dead already or alive? We live in a very, very old - I mean, like 250 years old - house which is far from hermetically sealed, even from the elements, let alone anything else. We get mice, Meg scares some of 'em off and a humane trap 'collects' the others. Then one day, we had this really bad smell. I said to Mr H. You know, it smells like there's a dead body under the floorboards. He said, wife, your imagination is too vivid. Then the smell got worser and worser so I prevailed on Mr H to lift up a floorboard here and there. He even made himself a little device with an old mirror taped to a stick, as one sees in police films on the telly. I was well impressed. Meg was not for messing with mirrors though and shot down the hole and under the floor. He held the mirror thing in the hole so I could see. And I saw something moving - a black devil like twitchy nose with whiskers....EEEEWWWWW I shrieked. It's a rat, it's alive!!! But wait. There was something familiar about the face. So, we got Meg out from under the floor and began again. Eventually, the rat corpse ... and its nest.... were found, removed and disposed of. And so endeth that little story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nancy Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Another reason to have cats. We'd been on vacation for 2 weeks, then returned to our house, which was really a summer cabin. We knew mice came in because we'd seen one peeking out from the "heatalators" in our fireplace onece we stopped fires for the spring. DH went back to work, leaving me with our 2-year-old. I started to check our food supplies for a shopping list. Opened the bottom of our fridge (remember those old ones with one door - the freezer door above the shelves - and a fold-down place underneath for stuff like cereal boxes?). And saw a rather long and black tail disappear. It was a rat. But we'd taken both the lab-shepherd and the cat on vacation with us. Never saw any sign of that beast again. Years later, we heard noises in the walls of a 1912 lovely house we owned. I put our 2 cats in the basement overnight for two nights. Never heard another sound. In neither case did we ever find bodies or bits (which we did with mice - nothing like a mouse head on the bathroom rug - Godcatters?). But the cat presence cured the problem. Can you borrow a good mouser? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShoresDog Posted August 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Truly a good hunting cat would be very welcome! The house was built in 1885 and has many possible pathways in. I would never live here year-round without a couple of cats. (I left my big boy Carlos back in San Diego with a friend who is monumentally spoiling him. Reports are that he gets brushed three times a day and is glossier than he's ever been in his life.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack & Co. Posted August 2, 2008 Report Share Posted August 2, 2008 Strategic retreat! I moved Juno's crate into my bedroom, and decided to await the arrival of DH today. Rat Patrol this weekend! That seems like a good hubby job. My DH's job is vomit, hair balls, and poo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haleigh Posted August 3, 2008 Report Share Posted August 3, 2008 I have some pet rats, so I'm naturally opposed to using poison and traps, but couldn't you try humane traps? They're smart little guys, and some rats learn to evade poison and the snappy traps (or what ever you use for bigger rodents). Mom had an old house with a huge mouse problem, and we combined our bengal-ish forces to create a mousy massacre. We brought Genghis to her house, and in combination with her bengal Ferocious, we had the house clear in a couple weeks. Needless to say, that cut down food costs for them Oh, and our rat terrier/jrt/chihuahua mix certainly did come in handy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuxedodog Posted August 4, 2008 Report Share Posted August 4, 2008 Someone suggested bait - don't do that. DH put bait outside our camper, we came back the next weekend and the critters brought it inside and put it in drawers and on the counters, after a major hunt, I was sure I got it all and was wrong, I missed 1 piece, mercifully Buster spit it out when I yelled at him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShoresDog Posted August 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2008 Well, I haven't seen any rodent droppings, so I'm taking a live and let live attitude ... for now. I did get rid of all the partially eaten food packages our landlady had left behind, both human and canine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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