Wanted: A Canine Who Can Smell the Rats Visiting Us From Sunset Cliffs

This image has absolutely nothing to do with Judi’s post except it’s a dog in a wanted poster.

By Judi Curry

In today’s world there is much going on that does not cause laughter. Well, of course, there are many different kinds of laughter, some of which is fun, some of which is nasty, some of which is sarcastic, etc.

I might have a little bit of laughter for YOU – (certainly not for me.) Here is my story.

Several years ago I wrote an article for the OB Rag about the new residents of Ocean Beach/ Pt. Loma.  Namely the rats were moving in. And I don’t mean the two legged kind – I mean the true, four-legged rats.  At times one could stand on Sunset Cliffs Blvd and watch the rats run across the street.  That was then.  Let me get you current.

Those damn rats found that Sunset Cliffs and its environs were a perfect place to raise their families, and so they invited many more of their species to join them along the beautiful cliffs.  But what frequently happens to these beautiful areas, it became overcrowded, and the rats decided they needed to move inland.  Not far inland, but away from the coastline, the birds of prey, and the fireworks.  They could still come and visit the trash cans, and even better the trash that was not being thrown into the cans.  And….the exodus began.

It just so happens that I have an abundance of fruit trees on my property.  Fruit that the rats just love.  And, for many years they were content to climb the trees or eat the falls.  After all, a lazy rat is a content rat, and these rats were not only lazy but they were fat.

I don’t know if COVID affected them, but for some reason they decided to stop eating what was outside and they wanted to come inside and scout the territory.  And, like grunion, they sent out their scouts to check the walls, the cracks in the stucco, and the wires.

And you know what?  They liked – no, they LOVED – what they saw, and pretty soon families began to move in.  At first no one was aware of it, because they stayed low to the ground and in the walls.  But a few nights ago one of my students pointed to an oblong brown something on the table and asked if that was a piece of chocolate.  I looked at it, and wasn’t quite sure what it was.  I have never seen anything quite so large and so dense before.  We picked it up and threw it out, and washed the table.  A few hours later she came to me with her cell phone all lit up and pointed out the “chocolate” – it was an adult rat turd.  Oh Crap!  (Literally and figuratively.)

Then we began finding more – in both bathrooms; on the kitchen floor.  Not a lot, but enough to know we had an unwelcome visitor.  We thought it was rather strange that neither of the two dogs seemed concerned. Shadow, my Golden Retriever, loves all animals and if he met the rats he probably welcomed them into the house and showed them where the treats are kept.

Darian, however, is new to us and we are not sure how she would react if she met a rat.  She’s part Pit-bull and Cattle Dog, and sure whips Shadow into shape if he does something wrong. And she tears the stuffing out of all her toys, so I would expect that she would make that rat toe the line or get the heck out of the house.

We decided we better set some rat traps in the house, because we had already caught 3 rats in the backyard.  Setting traps with two active dogs is not easy, and we were very particular where we put them, how we put them, and what we did with the dogs when the traps were active.  (We actually locked them up with us so they never saw the set traps.)

The morning after the first night we had set the traps, Steve came in to report that the rats were smarter than him.  It seems that they managed to eat all of the food on the 4 traps, never set one off, and the traps were clean.

We knew we had to do something different. Last night we set up two old traps which had caught rats successfully outside, in the kitchen.  We put one in front of the dishwasher, where we think they are getting in because of a small hole next to one of the water pipes; we put on in the pantry.  The door is almost impossible to open, but there is enough space between the door and the floor for it to sneak in if it wanted to eat cans.  We put a brand new trap on top of the wild bird suet and we but another new one outside where we had caught the three others.  And we locked ourselves and the dogs up in the bedroom and waited for the tell-tale “CLICK” of the trap falling into place.

At 5:57am, Steve heard that click and with glee he ran into the kitchen to see our prey.  Within seconds he was back to report that, yes, we got the rat, maybe, because there is blood all over the floor in front of the dishwasher, but no rat.  He dressed in his “trapper” clothes – long shirt, gloves, long pants, and went out to find the rat, which he thought was under the refrigerator.

He was right.  The rat was smarter than him, because he – the rat – did not stay around while Steve was changing his clothes.  The rat was nowhere to be found in the kitchen. Steve came back with his report and as he was turning to resume his quest, there was the limping rat in the hallway.  And, once again, the rat outsmarted Steve, because by the time that Steve got to where he saw the rat, the rat was gone.  Steve thought it went under the couch after finding some more evidence but the rat was not to be seen.  Nor was he under the loveseat, the piano, the coffee table, etc.

We brought Darian to the area where we thought the rat might be, because it just happens to be her favorite place to sleep, but she wasn’t interested in exploring there.

We have now moved every piece of furniture in the living room and did not find the rat. We did find part of the jerky we used for bait under the couch; and we did find blood stains under the couch, but we did not find the rat.

You know what that means, don’t you?  It appears that we will be housing our visitor for another day and we are hoping that it does not go back to its hole in the wall to nurse its injured leg, or even worse, to die there. We are hoping that it did not bring his family with him when he made the trek from the Cliffs to the more sedate area of Pt. Loma; we are hoping that neither of the dogs find it and think that it is a play thing.  And most importantly, I am hoping that we know when the rat leaves so that I can sit in my own living room, or dining room, or kitchen, or…….