Okay, I’m going to start with a spoiler alert – don’t read this if you’re in the middle of eating!
This is what Reuben brought in last night. It’s a bit difficult to get a sense of scale from the photo, but that was probably an 8″ body, plus maybe the same again for the tail! Yes, Reuben presented us with a fully-grown, adult rat! Fortunately, it was very, very dead!
He came in through the cat flap, and he’s carrying this thing by the scruff of the neck, like it was a kitten. I mean. they’re normally so small that you can’t really tell how he’s carrying them, but this one… very much by the scruff of the neck!
So what do you do? Tell him off? Actually it’s great if he starts decimating the local rat population, but… just make sure they’re absolutely dead before bringing them anywhere near us!
Then we have the slight problem of how to get rid of the body. Better not try flushing it…
Mister Bump 
Our dog Bella used to catch rats in the woodshed in France. She was brilliant at it. Grabbed them by the neck and shook them to kill them. Death was instantaneous.
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This is the first time I have known a cat to go for one, although as cats go he’s a big bugger. We’re only about 1/4 mi from the river so there are quite a few rats. They used to be terrible when we kept chickens.
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When we lived in the city, our cat gifted us with a few rats, although not as big as the one your cat brought in. No such gifts since we moved to the burbs.
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N we’ve had a few little presents but I don’t remember anything as vicious as a rat before. Somebody brought in a wood pigeon once, but they’re not particularly feisty.
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Gahhhhhh! I hope Reuben got a great big prezzie in form of a treat of some kind for his amazing good deed. Still. Ew. That thing would be garbage can bound (wrapped in two layers of plastic bags ‘just in case’ …
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I used to shoot them, and was afraid to touch them afterwards. Used to use a garden fork to take them out to the street. But I suppose they’re no more horrible than the other stuff he brings in. Wife put it in the green waste!
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