Re: “Rats should worry about Jack ­Russell terriers,” letter, Feb. 7.

The response to my letter about ratting cats demands a reply. It claims that “Cats are not especially good ratters… [A] rat is too formidable for most cats to deal with as prey.”

The writer, who admits to not owning a cat, obviously never met my cats or others I’ve known, and I’ve no reason to believe that they were anomalous examples of the species.

One of my cats seemed to have devoted her life to rat eradication, and a couple of nasty bites didn’t deter her.

Over the decades, I disposed of hundreds of rat corpses and dispatched a fair few injured rats — an unpleasant business. (I recall one week when I was woken twice by a cat bringing in a shrieking rat. What fun.)

Those were just the ones they brought home, so there may have been many more. Most of these rats were indeed juveniles, but that just means that their destructive careers were nipped in the bud. Rats breed like … well, rats.

Obviously, all these creatures can’t have been seized in my yard alone, so my cats were performing the public service for which the Egyptians and others recruited cats millennia ago.

Jack Russells and other terriers are indeed notable ratters, but they lack feline night vision and stealth, and we do not permit their independence.

Hence, the barn cat, the warehouse cat, the factory cat and the cat that leaves the fireside to do its time-honoured duty.

Hilary Knight

Victoria

Re: “Rats should worry about Jack ­Russell terriers,” letter, Feb. 7.

I must disagree with the writer’s assessment that “Cats are not especially good ratters.”

One summer, about a decade ago, my neighbourhood cat Salvador brought me 17 dead (adult) rats. That same summer, he delivered 24 dead rats to his owners, who lived three doors down.

For several more years, Salvador continued to deposit dead rats at our doorsteps, though never surpassing that single summer’s personal best.

Six years ago, circumstances led to Salvador moving in with me. Because I believe cats — and birds — are safer when Felis catus is behind closed doors, Salvador is now an indoor cat, leash-trained for walks around the backyard. He’ll be 22 in May.

But there’s a new ratter-cat in the........

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