Eighteen dogs brave the freezing cold and rain to clear rats from a farm shoot just outside Petersfield in this episode of Dogs with Jobs.

After months spent gorging on grain left for the pheasants, rats have multiplied in the area around the grain bins and ‘cover crop’. Poison is the only alternative to dogs, with the attendant risks to wildlife, so the gamekeeper welcomes the rat pack as the most effective and humane option.

It’s a “bobbery pack” of different breeds, from a sizeable lurcher to mini sausage dogs, labrador and various hounds alongside the terriers – for whom ratting is a vocation.  Presenter Kate Fairweather marvels at how the different breeds instinctively work as a pack, each applying their skills to the jobs that suit them best.

It’s noisy, it’s muddy, it’s exciting and it’s certainly quick – a hard bite to the neck, combined with a shake kills the rats instantly, and the dogs move on to the next, cheered on by their owners. 

Kate was a guest of the West Sussex Warreners’ Rat Pack.

Feel free to get in contact with the West Sussex Warreners if you have a farm or a shoot with a rat problem. They are fully insured and all their dogs are broken to livestock.

Other episodes:

Dogs with Jobs features the full range of working dogs, therapy dogs, military and service dogs, assistance dogs, bio detection dogs, sporting dogs and other more unusual occupations such as truffle hunting, modelling and conservation detection work.

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like some of the episodes that feature sporting dogs and hunting hounds:

• Meet the Sealyham terrier rat pack , recorded at the Game Fair (August 2023)
• Who’s winning at the South of England Hound Show? (August 2023)
• Meet the South Down Bloodhounds (November 2022)
• Meet the Beagles! (October 2022)
• Debit and Dervish, the hunting hound pups (November 2021)
• An insight into the breeding of hounds (November 2021)

Browse more dogs with interesting jobs.

Do you work your dog or dogs?

Get in touch with Kate Fairweather if you’re interested in coming on the show on team@shineradio.uk- or can recommend someone else who may be interested. ALL dogs are of interest!