Rat Hunters?
 

I've read that Yorkies were bred to hunt and kill rats during the times of high rat infestations in England.

If this is true, I am wondering if these dogs are less susceptible to disease carried by rats.

I just read on another one of my forums that a member had to put his dog down after he got very sick and had high level of toxins in his kidneys. After a few days the dog pooped out the skin/shell of a rat and that is what caused his death. After 30 days of treatment and flushes he had to put him down because he just got worse and worse.

I am in Michigan and my neighborhood does not have a rat infestation but we do have a deck in the back and who knows what's under there.

I am wondering if there was a rat and Cesar caught and killed it (which he would) would he be susceptible as any other dog, or do Yorkies have a higher tolerance?

Yes, Yorkies were originally bred as ratters. They would take them to the coal mines and put them in tunnels and have them catch rats. Also, there were used in a betting contest, where rats were in a pen and people would bet on how long it would take the terrier to kill the rats. Huddersfield Ben, said to be the foundation sire of the breed was reported to be very good at ratting contests. Huddersfield Ben - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To answer your question, I do not think this means that they are less susceptible to disease, only that small animals excite them and bring out the hunting instinct. I wouldn’t let Joey around a rat, if I had the choice.

Yes that is what they were used for but I don't think it makes them any more susceptible to disease. I agree with Nancy, I wouldn't let Poppy any where near one... I don't even like her being near frogs never mind rats! ;)

About 40 some years ago I was living in San Antonio Texas for a short time, and I read a tip in the Sunday paper that said to "Keep Tarantulas, under your bed in a box. Let them out occasionally to catch rats." I don't think they were trying to be funny, but I never could forget that “tip”. :eek:

URGH! I don't think I will be getting much sleep tonight after reading that LOL!

Ask all neighbors and people around to please use SNAP TRAPS.

Not only are they the most humane way to take care of problem rodents but using poisons is very dangerous.

May pest control places tell you they use enclosed dog and cat safe poisons..NO the poison is only neutralized by vitamin K and if you don't feed your dog or cat a food that has added vitamin K they will surely suffer the same fate as the rat- if untreated the first sign of poisoning in "safe" rodent poisons is extreme thirst.

I doubt a dog breed created would have evolved to in such a short time to have such an immunity however if the breeds they originated from did perhaps-but I'd put money they don't have any more immunity than any other breed of dog or cat.

My friend's pointer ate a gopher alive and whole-I'm pretty sure pointer weren't bred for this, but nevertheless she was just fine short of the scratches on her lip from Gopher bite marks.

-my friend was super lucky the gopher wasn't sick or poisoned.

Watch closely never let them catch one these are our pets not our working expendable farm animals...

I mean even the thought of the Tarantula doing it's job and I guess eating the rat is just so sickening.

Back in the day, yes I do believe they would have been less suspectible to disease carried by rats because the more the body is exposed, the more it builds antibodies to protect against it. But I don't think that holds true today since their use for rat hunting has long passed. I don't know what kind of disease or parasites rats carry that our dogs can get, but I do know that opossums and wild rabbits pose a threat to our dogs.

I also lived in TX a while...my older son had open heart surgery in San Antonio. That's not a tip I would ever forget, either...nor one I would do! :eek:

Having grown up in OK and having been "chased" as a child by a huge black hairy tarantula that just wouldn't die by being 'ground' multiple times into the earth by my Dad's cowboy boot heel and continued to hop up out of the hole and chase me again, I am not a huge fan of spiders of any size...oh, and I accidentally discovered that "Raid Wasp and Hornet" will cut the legs off the brown FL tarantulas (and the huge wolf spiders) at close range...:rolleyes:

Can you elaborate on the threat(s)?

Rabbits can carry Tularemia (rabbit fever) and opossums can carry leptospirosis.

Yes they were ratter back then, but Lord only knows how many poor little Yorkies succumbed to rat bites. I'm glad we take better care of our little fur kids these days! They have become more our kids than a tool or other.

Rats carry : rabies, lepto, tularemia, something called rat bite fever, Salmonella, and then there are the parasites too.:(

Yorkies being bred as ratters does not automatically give them any immunity to any diseases, whether or not rats carried the diseases. If Yorkies Huddersfield Ben, (particularly) had any natural immunities to the diseases carried by the rats of those days, it is logically possible that today's Yorkies may still retain some immunity. I wouldn't count on it, though.

The big difference, IMHO, is that today's rats have evolved in a wide variety of changes in their environment. Whatever their adaptations, there is now considerably more to it than disease. Today's rats living in sewers in NYC, for example, undoubtedly consume or are exposed to vast quantities of toxins...degrading plastics, industrial cleaners, and medical waste, for example, that the rats that are not killed off by the toxicity will have developed some immunity and/or tolerance to. I doubt Yorkies have that 'advantage' if you can call it that.

My lap dog Yorkies will hopefully never consume such things...nor will they likely kill rats. Were they to come in contact with the toxic load one of today's city rats was carrying, if it didn't cause lethal or at least serious harm, I would be absolutely shocked because today's food makes me ill just from the chemical additives!

Leaving San Antonio, late at night with my 1 month old baby, we headed for small Texas town, where we would be stationed. The road ahead was blackened with something and as we slowed down we were horrified to learn that there were hundreds/thousands( ?) of tarantulas, it must have been a tarantula road crossing, you could hear crunch crunch as we drove over them. I was terrified that when we got out of the car there would be hundreds of them on it (there weren't). It really was like something from a horror movie.

:eek::eek: I would need major therapy to recover from this. I have a similar snake story that still haunts me, but spideys......I cannot deal with!

I would say they are as susceptible as any dog. I think if a dog has all its vaccines it would be ok if it killed it but I think most dogs would get sick if they ate the whole rat and more so the smaller the dog they are. But I think if a dog kills and eats anything that was once was alive then it has a chance of getting sick. When we first got Callie we put a chicken like wire around the bottom of anything she could get under like the shed and deck to make sure she wouldn't get under there and something might hurt her and we still make sure the chicken like wire stays up.

I wouldn't think being a ratter would make them less susceptible to disease, but probably how a yorkie kills makes it less exposed to diseases. If you've seen a yorkie at work, they don't bite & tear open their kills, they grab it quickly, and its a fast, hard shake that snaps the rodent's neck.

I wonder if that's why Callie shakes her toys so violently. Did they have to be taught that or did they just know to kill them that way?

That's the "shake and kill." It's instinctual for a terrier/ratter.

You can see it here in this youtube video:

I think a lot of hunting animals instinctively know to shake the prey and break its neck...this is why I don't let dexter anywhere my hamster lol He could stare at the hamster all day if I let him.

Ps. Remind me never to live in Texas!

Well ok don't yell at me it was NOT my fault :p When Laddy was about 8 months old my DH took him out to do his nightly business. When they came back in my DH proudly exclaimed....Laddy just killed a mouse!!!:eek: I was not impressed (that mouth kisses me) lol but he didn't let him eat it thank goodness. So they do even though we pamper them still have the ratter instincts.

That's exactly how Joey plays with his toys. I guess I was assuming they killed the rat to eat it, but it looks like they just kill the rat for sport. The only reason I'm mentioning this is because I've heard a million times "Man is the only animal who kills for sport, other animals kill for food."

That's what Callie does with her toys

I swear I saw some where that dolphins will kill for sport.

Oh no, not dolphins!!!! I have them on a pedestal! I wear earrings in their shape, to pay homage to them!

lol yes I see it everyday when I walk in the door and he grabs his toy. He runs, grabs it, kills it, then brings it to me and drops it at my feet.

Well I was just wondering because sometimes we do get rodents. I've never seen a rat but I have seen a skunk in my backyard. He and Cesar were face to face and Cesar was just barking at him. The skunk just ran from him. I saw the skunk and I yelled for him to come in but he wouldn't. Luckily the skunk did not spray and just ran away. I'm guessing he must have sprayed and didn't have any left otherwise we'd be in trouble.

Cesar doesn't back down from anything though and that's what scares me. Hopefully if he did catch something outside he'd just kill it and drop it.

My understanding is this is true...they are also taught hunting skills, and practice in play and for real. Dogs and cats also play practice hunting skills as puppies and kittens, and as adults. If you watch a cat eat, you may well see them pick up food and shake vigorously before eating. I have seen mine do this many, many times. Living in FL we refer to it as "shaking the fire ants off" but it really has little to do with one of FL's most common pests. lol

Dogs and cats today who are human fed regular meals still instinctively hunt and catch and/or kill prey. If they were not human fed and were hungry, they would likely still consume their kill, too.

My cats have brought home plenty of live...and not...catches. :eek: The last was a Titmouse, who we rescued unharmed from the cat and took to a friend with an aviary where he was welcomed into another Titmouse family. One cat brought his Daddy a freshly killed still warm field mouse, apparently because he 'knew' DH had not eaten all day, rebuilding a custom motorcycle which died two days before a show it was entered in...due to a design flaw. :confused:

My first Shep/Lab, Honey (Honey Houdini :p...also Honey Bunches :D), killed a ground burrowing rodent while in a spike choker collar on a steel cable run...and she was so proud of herself. She was 'a natural huntress'...she also brought home a domestic turkey foot from the turkey farm nearby after escaping yet another restraint system...and I was expecting a loaded shotgun carrying farmer hot on her heels. :eek::rolleyes:

I am so glad I never had to drive through a sea of tarantulas...I'd probably still be bouncing off the walls in a rubber room somewhere! :eek: We did drive through a sea of tiny frogs at night, though, and it was awful. :(

Nancy,
I seriously hope you plan to entertain me while I'm up all night. After reading this, I won't sleep for a week. I don't do spiders in any format. Period. The spiders that live in my house know the rules. They must stay behind the walls at all times. If they come out, I have to kill them. Luckily most of them understand.

When I lived in the deep southern part of Alabama, I discovered the crawl space of my house was a haven for the brown recluse. I moved out of the house for a month while it was exterminated and never did settle back in there. Not long after that, I sold the house and moved to Utah.

On rats... I can't picture Gabby indulging the effort to move off my lap to chase one. We had a mouse get into the house back in December. The whole family was watching tv and Gabby was on the arm of the couch right next to me. Out of the blue, the mouse casually walked across the livingroom floor. I was stunned, looked at Gabby and she looked back at me as if to say "You gonna get that?"

Lazy dog.