Earlier this year, I was waiting for a bus in front of a gas station in Albany Park when I noticed an elderly woman milling around in the decorative ground cover that passes for green space in the parking lot. She was tossing fistfuls of torn bread onto what I then noticed was a cratered moonscape of holes in the ground.
I can’t imagine the old woman’s motivations, but I was certainly curious. Is it possible that this universally reviled pest has fans? Is there a reason to love rats. Or at least show them a little respect?
Rats can also help domestic animals get in touch with their animal instincts. This spring my pit bull puppy darted to the backyard fence in broad daylight and seized a squeaking rat in her jaws before prancing around the yard tossing it into the air like an orca with a baby seal. Furthermore, you rarely find rats in places where there aren’t any humans. If we weren’t such slobs, there wouldn’t be so many of them. By multiplying with a boost from our casually discarded waste, rats are just being the best rats they can be.
