D&D listener and his rat-killing dog pack

Bill has often said how you never know what's going to be on the other end of that line when you pick up the phone. Such was the case on Thursday's show when we were talking about leptospirosis and outrageous vet bills. Lepto is a bacterial infection that dogs can get from drinking water outdoors contaminated by the urine of infected wildlife. New Jersey veterinary clinics are being deluged with calls this week because cases of it are suddenly much higher than usual.

A guy called in who says he doesn't worry about lepto because he thinks his dog is probably immune to it by now. Why you ask? Well, because his dog is part of a pack of terriers that he and other dog owners take rat hunting in New York City. Yes, I'll repeat that. These people's hobby is raising terriers who like to go rat hunting.

They go to NYC about once a week and look for dumpsters and areas most likely to be infested with live rats. Then the terriers do what comes naturally. They hunt them. I had never heard of such a thing, and Bill, with his strong aversion to rodents, didn't want to hear of such a thing. The listener mentioned the New York Post had just done a writeup on his group a few days ago and he sent us the link.

Hold on to your lunch and check out this story. One part that fascinated me is how these dogs have to be trained to do a 'clean kill' by shaking the rat violently to snap its neck rather than tear into it with their teeth. Yikes! Make sure you scroll through the photo gallery of so many dogs with rats hanging out of their mouths. (I'm going to secretly lift these and put them as screen savers on Doyle's computer!)

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