It’s no secret D.C. has a rat problem, but what you may not know is that some local dog owners are trying to help.
Bomani Mtume and his dog, Barto, are among a number of dog owners who patrol for vermin around the Adams Morgan neighborhood in Northwest on Saturday nights.
Mtume picked up the idea from the Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society (or R.A.T.S.), a New York City-based group that sets up rat hunts with their dogs. He started taking Barto out on hunts with a similar D.C.-based group in September, and has since carried on the work independently with a few other owners.
The actual process of the dogs capturing and killing a rat is as graphic as you’d expect.
“They usually grab them and shake them until their neck breaks, and then they let them go and go for another one,” Mtume told WTOP, saying that the dogs don’t eat the rats after killing them.
Barto might not be the most imposing canine on the block — he’s a Cairn Terrier, the same breed as Toto from “The Wizard of Oz” — but that doesn’t mean he’s slouch when it comes to rat hunting.
Mtume said Barto sometimes shakes the rats so violently that he sometimes disembowels the rodents.
Some people are critical of the method, but Mtume says business and home owners in the area are not complaining.
“This is nature,” Mtume said. “This is what these dogs would be doing if they were let loose on the farm some place.”
