This time of year, when its cold and wet, we get rats moving into the roof of our house, and into the shed. You hear them scuffling around, fighting, chewing on assets….its pretty annoying.

Bertie was good at keeping the numbers down, on ground level, but I also need to make an effort and cull them directly.

We almost never use baits, as I don't want an ill/poisoned rat being caught and eaten by, say, an owl or my dogs.

So we mostly use traps. We have mixed success. I find there will be one or two rats that are just that much smarter than the rest. They seem to be able to setoff the snap traps and not get caught, or work out how to open the snap-door live traps.

I invested in some balance-tip traps this year, and they have worked, but again, more than one rat has worked out how to get the food and avoid the trapdoor.

Its an ongoing arms race.

We currently have three dogs with us. Two belong to someone else and we are minding them. They are lovely, energetic happy Jack Russells, both related to our Bertie. They hate rats and are keen to check the places out multiple times a day and make sure there are none around.

But today they were hanging around the kitchen while I was making my lunch. They don't beg, but they optimistically keep themselves handy just in case I need help with, say, a scrap of cheese. But suddenly one, then both, lost interest in me and started investigating the space around our fridge. They are not quite small enough to get behind it, but they can jam their heads in the space.

Something was up. On one side of the fridge we stash supermarket carry bags…the heavy, reusable fabric and lined bags. Originally there were some plastic hooks stuck on the side of the fridge, but they broke and we lazily just dump the bags in the space and let friction hold them there.

I grabbed a handful and lifted them up. Surprise! A quite large adult rat stared at me for a second, then scrambled behind the fridge.

It bounced past the dogs and took off, and ran to the far end of the dining room under a cupboard.

Our house has a tiled floor. Its cold in winter, great in summer, and fantastic for sweeping clean. Carpet would be a nightmare of mud.

But for little feet its very slippery.

So then began five minutes of madness. The dogs, with my kelpie now joining in, get so wound up they can't think straight, or even see, apparently. The rat ran past them all, doubling back, while they continued to jam their heads under the sideboard. "Oy OY! Here!" I shouted at them as the rat ran past me.

Then it was on, the rat dodged past me, looped though the space behind the fridge, then u-turned and ran up the passage to the back end of the house.

The dogs, in varying degrees of disconnect and frenzy, tried to follow but hit the corners hard at high speed and simply skidded off the track. I actually got to the end of the passage ahead of them. At the end are four doors, to laundry, toilet, bathroom and bedroom. The laundry door was ajar and I jumped ahead and pulled it shut as the rat went for the gap. Foiled, it turned and raced back down the passage.

The two Jack Russells were charging up and simply couldn't stop and the rat dodged between them as they skittered onwards. But the kelpie was behind them, and even though he skated and slipped he managed to gracefully turn backwards while he was sliding and lunge and snap and it was all over.

Even though it wasn't his, the male Jack Russell claimed the corpse. I know this routine….he needed to be given the rat, which he would take off and ineptly bury somewhere. Usually in my wife's flower bed. In summer we used to find them a week later, investigating a terrible smell. Or a bird would unearth it and move into the middle of the lawn. Always something horrible….!

Now they are all sleeping. They are emotionally exhausted.