Rat hunting with dogs in New York City alleys

***Warning: this post contains images of dead rats!***

In New York City, there is a group of dog owners who get together weekly when the weather permits to hunt rats among the piled bags of garbage in the city’s dank alleyways. They call themselves Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society (RATS). The dogs are mostly terriers and so the primary purported purpose of the group is to maintain the instincts these animals were originally bred for, namely hunting vermin. There is, of course, the added benefit of rat extermination that accompanies a successful expedition.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which opposes hunting in general, expressed outrage after video of a dog snatching rats in a New York City park surfaced online two years ago. PETA Spokesman Martin Mersereau calls the alley rat quests ‘a twisted blood sport masquerading as rodent control.’ Reynolds counters that ‘there are lots of worse things that people do to rats,’ noting that poisons can sicken the animals for hours. The hunters point out that the poison that is typically used to manage the rat population takes hours to kill its victims whereas 'death by terrier is almost instantaneous.' Also, no dogs have been reported harmed from this strange hobby.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RathuntersNYC
http://news.msn.com/us/hunting-nyc-style-owners-set-dogs-on-alley-rats

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