RATS 0 TED 3 Th e Fr o m e Fo s s i l
A
ll creatures have their purpose in life. Supposedly. Even the things we sneer at: squishy slugs recycle old leaves, stingy wasps demolish caterpillars, spooky spiders catch flies, smelly skunks eat rattlesnakes. But what, we wondered for a long time, was the use of our new terrier? He certainly did stuff - he barked a lot, he shrieked at other dogs, he pulled on the lead, he dug up the flower beds, he chewed the plaster off the walls. But none of it was what you might call constructive or public spirited. Then, the other day I allowed him into our veg patch for the first time. It was like flicking a switch. He streaked up the path and nose-dived elegantly into the compost heap. Now a compost heap – as any gardener will admit – is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it will miraculously process all your spud peelings and apple cores and weeds and old newspapers and sprout stalks into lovely crumbly brown stuff which your soil will love. On the other, it offers a cosy combo of home and all-you-can-eat restaurant for our old pal Rattus norvegicus, who will move in, dig great tunnels, make grassy nests and procreate with frightening gusto. So I was intrigued to see what happened in this close encounter between the mad dog and the great survivor. From the heap came a lot of scrabbling and heavy breathing. Then there was an ear-splitting squeak, followed by silence. I peered round the corner of the garden shed. There stood Ted, looming over a massive and very dead rat, its bowels unspooling like spaghetti . He looked up at me, head on one side, as if to say: “Yeah? What you staring at?” Whacking rodents was, clearly, what he did.
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He was very good at it. A couple of days later, like a lightning bolt, he dispatched another. Then another. And now the compost heap is a blessedly rat-free zone, which means I can dig into it without the risk of small furry things scurrying up my trouser leg. What’s more, I no longer have to fiddle about with other forms of vermin control, which range from the tedious (live traps) to the extremely smelly (wheely bins full of rancid fish trimmings and – don’t ask). Best of all, I’ll never be pushed to the final solution: poison. Ted is, in his bizarre way, an eco-warrior.
