When the children were young and still at home, I gazed out of the window one balmy young Summer day.
With Stepford-wife squeaky enthusiasm I noted a small brown creature crouching in the middle of the lawn in the back garden. A hedgehog! Culloo, cullay, a learning experience for the minors!
“Maddie! Felix!” I shrilled, removing the chintz pinny and skipping happily off to retrieve the little ones from their unsuspecting posts with Barbie and sundry Lego. “Come and see the back garden! I think we have a visitor!”
They left off from their endeavours at the trilling of their mother’s voice: for surely, when Mummy calls with such enthusiasm, there must be some true wonder out there, waiting for their inspection.
We all arrived at the back patio doors at the same time. I strode out, donning my instructional persona, ready to point out the spiney strengths of the hedgehog in question. Such boney legs: such a long snout; such a timid disposition.
Except that when I arrived at the lawn, I and my chintzy enthusiasm screeched to an unceremonious halt. For there, curled up and minding its own business, was not a hedgehog, but a very large rat.
Mind spinning in aghast English middle class panic, I hurriedly reversed my instructions to the children. What to do? Who does one notify about an elderly, listless rodent in the middle of suburbia?
Of course, I called my Dad. Dad, I said, come quickly, there’s a rat in the middle of the lawn, whatever shall I do?
He didn’t know, but he came anyway. I can’t quite remember what made it stir its stumps: my father’s stern tones, perhaps, or maybe that stick someone poked him with. Poor soul. He wasn’t staying around to be prodded. He took himself off to the next garden, and became Somebody Else’s Problem, for the moment at least.
Looking back I am filled with chagrin. Because a rat is no cause for high-pitched middle class alarum.
Rats are clever little spirits. They can, it seems, be trained. And in some parts of the world they are very busy saving lives.
Enter, APOPO. A charity, registered in Belgium, headquartered in Tanzania.
State-of-the-art rat detection technology.
Rats, you see, have the keenest sense of smell. Theirs even beats that of dogs. On a windy day a rat will spot the distinctive aroma of TNT where a dog will fail miserably.
But it takes a painstaking two years training. They are clever enough to learn; driven by food not loyalty to any one owner; and they are light enough to stand on a mine, and signal its existence. Right now there are rats out there in war-torn countries, de-mining whole villages and making the world a safer place.
Not only that, but there is some evidence those keen noses can sniff out a disease too. Like tuberculosis.
In sub-Saharan countries detection of TB is a dodgy business. There they depend on outmoded , inaccurate methods to track down signs of this disease which robs so many of life out there.
APOPO trains ‘Doctor Rats’, which identify TB samples. They have proved themselves useful, if one believes the organisation which trains them: the clinics who use rats report an increase in the detection rate of TB at around 30 per cent.
Back in the affluent West we are still horrified at the very presence of these little fellow globedwellers.
In the UK yesterday the news bulletins were full of a cameo appearance on a rather important doorstep: Number Ten Downing Street.
Reader, it is alleged that our small pattering comrades are intelligent. Why, then, did one choose a BBC News political broadcast to potter across the threshold of this bastion of English political life?
Naturally, a certain contingent here on this island is dedicated to highlighting such inconvenient minutiae, and the rat was unceremoniously outed.
In response, Downing Street made a momentous announcement. In the tradition of Mayor Whittington himself, wherever rats tread the London cobbles, a cat is sure to follow. And once again, Westminster has employed a cat.
Larry is a tabby from Battersea Dogs And Cats Home, the time-honoured dogs and cats rescue centre. He is not the first cat to be engaged to fight the war on rats: Humphrey was a Tory cat who made it into Labour prime minister Tony Blair’s time in office. But Larry is, as political commentators have delighted in pointing out, the country’s first Coalition cat.
I am torn. Do I wish Larry well?
A part of me wishes that Larry were like Terry Pratchett’s Amazing Maurice: a thinking cat’s cat. A reflector on his own practice. A pied piper-cat who will lead these little interlopers elsewhere, out of the glare of the world’s publicity and towards a Fagin-like livelihood.
But the bit of me who realised this was no hedgehog, that day long ago: that, Reader, is less philosophical.
You?
Kate Shrewsday 
Welllllll…first there’s the nature thing: cats will eat rats and that’s all there is to it. Then there’s the disease thing: the fleas on rats cause Bubonic Plague and I’m not really in favour of that. But rats are intelligent creatures (as your fascinating post demonstrates). And I once wrote a poem to a dead rat that I found lying in the street, so I’m not unsympathetic.
So I guess my answer is: dunno.
😀 which echoes my thoughts exactly. I’d love to read that poem….
You can read it here:
http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/a-scouse-apology/
Thanks Tilly!
I saw the glare of the British news spotlight on Larry last night – it was quite surreal and quite hilarious!
Unless Larry’s going to round up the rats and send them off for training in Tanzania, I’d say he should follow his instincts!
Sunshine xx
I will be watching every feline move as he does just that, Sunshine… 😀
I’ve often thought that if wild rats could be nicely washed and maybe trained not to bite, they’d make great companions. They are very cute… we had one in our garden a couple of years ago. Unfortunately it brought its family and I think a farm cat had them for dinner…
An inglorious ending, but such is life, Val 🙂
Rats, of the tamed sort, (or more specifically of the ginger and white variety, ones called ‘Fred and George’ (Weasley), the ones that Scout had, for nearly three years) are rather sweet, but all rats have this rather disturbing habit of trickling urine, rather than storing it up in their bladders and voiding it in one place.
For this reason Fred and George were only allowed out of their cage onto hard flooring, of the kind that can be swabbed down with a damp disinfectant soaked mop. They needed cleaning out on alternate days and if they were left for longer the human noses were informed rather promptly, the moment the front door was opened.
If you are to socialise a rat ready for training the window for this is very brief: Miss this window, apparently, and no matter how hard you try you have a basically wild rat on your hands. And as their life span is only two to three years, on average, two years of training seems rather intensive!
Fred and George are both buried at the bottom of the garden after developing boils and ‘going off their legs’ – within months of each other.
Our cat didn’t like the caged rats at all. So he utilised ignoring tactics.
He has however once bought home a wild rat, dead, and found it a rather large crunchy snack, so left a portion on the kitchen floor for me to try.
I wish Larry luck. He’ll need it.
A mine of information, as always, Pseu, thank you. Love the thought of Fred and George. The size of that rat in the sighting leads me to believe you are right about the task Larry has ahead of him. These ones in Africa are African Pouched Rats with a lifespan of 7 – 10 years. That’s got to be a lot of villages 😉
Aha! African Pouched Rats. I wonder if they have the same incontinence?
Not sure on that one 🙂 will email APOPO….
http://www.pouchedrats.co.uk/
CRIKEY. They’re HUGE!
LOL
Oh, yucky. I have to ask: when you realized the hedgehog was actually a rat, did you shriek like women do in old cartoons? I ask because we had a similar experience, and when I saw a tiny mouse crawling across the patio, I literally shrieked like my life depended on it. It was totally involuntary.
I never knew rats were as smart as what your research has uncovered. Interesting!
Horror usually makes me freeze like a deer in the headlights, Maura 😀 That’s just what I did…
I find it difficult to believe that someone as observant as you mistook a rat for a hedgehog. 🙂
Just saying . . .
My first view was from the upper floor: my long sight isn’t great; the rat had its back to the house and was curled up on its haunches; the only aerial view available was the back; and that tan colour is common to both fur and hedgehog spines. I might have an inner eye that’s observant but the ones I have are not perfect by any means, Nancy 🙂
The cat and the rat will of course, in line with present politics, form a coalition. They will then pretend to be doing what they have been elected to do – i.e. catch and be caught – but will actually follow their own agendas.
My brother designed mine-detecting equipment (and de-mining stuff) and spent some time in Tanzania with the woman who trains the rats there. What a co-incidence that you;d heard of it.
Maybe the rat was a better lesson for the children.
I think that Downing street cats are a-political. Cats are too smart to get caught uo in such silly human stuff
Oh, my goodness, a contact! If one could ever love a rat those giant African pouched rats are the most endearing. And so clever.
Larry’s stare could fell a rat at 10 paces, I suspect, He has all the authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
I will not deny, one of the reasons I love having a cat around the house, especially an avid hunting cat, is the lack of pests we have to deal with.
Our first summer here we had a near infestation of frogs. It seems living on a lake has its downsides. Frogs in my living room is one of those downsides. But after that first summer, we haven’t seen them since. Who else could be to blame but the cat? He makes sure all amphibious types, as well as rodent types, steer clear. It’s the least he can do, really.
Perfectly natural, a solution which suits all sides 🙂 Long may your cat keep all at bay, Kristine.
Queen_UK Elizabeth Windsor on Twitter:
The DoE thought that Mr Cameron would have learned his lesson about letting abandoned strays into Downing Street after Mr Clegg.
Ha! So true! And that last stray’s flexing his muscles more than his Premier is comfortable with, I think…
Briliantly thought-provoking, Kate 🙂
Our Jina is behind Larry all the way; doing her own bit for the cause. However, I’ve also watched a TV program on rats being trained to sniff out landmines (apparently they’re easier to train than dogs), and being a frequent visitor to Mozambique (still littered with mines), I must be grateful. Like you, though, my first response to a gigantic rat in the London underground (first ever visit years ago), was to cringe!
We live in an enlightened age, don’t we, Naomi, and feel we should be tolerant…but a large part of us is very, very grateful for the Jinas and the Larrys of this world.
I’m a big baby when it comes to mice, rats would be my undoing, I’m sure. Still, their detection services are to be commended, as is APOPO, and I got a big kick out of reading all the political comments here, Kate.
You should have seen the BBC, Penny, it was so full of Larry on the day it happened! A story like that, stuffed with humour, is just what our nation needs right now. If truth be told, I think we’re all rooting for Larry. I shall try and take a photo myself when I’m up there! (How I wonder does one get it autographed?)
I like the tree picture “Claw” Reminds me of Dylan Thomas “Rage against the dying of the light” Has me thinking about a poem to create with that tree for illustration. May I commandeer the photo?
Go ahead, Carl 🙂