Are rats dangerous to cats, dogs, or other pets?

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Rats are dangerous to all other animals, cats, dogs, other pets, and even humans included. They are considered to be one of the biggest and most prolific pests around the world, and they wreak havoc in residential , agricultural and commercial areas. They are animals well known to carry disease, and were actually responsible for the spread of the Black Plague, which virtually wiped out the population in certain parts of Europe.



Rats carry a great number of diseases, and these include:

Leptospirosis
Rat bite fever
Flea-borne typhus
Salmonellosis
Plague

These diseases can be passed from rats to other animals, and also from rats to humans. If pets are infected, they can also infect humans in the same household, and when they interact with other animals and pets in the neighborhood, the diseases have a chance to spread even further.

The ways that rats can spread disease are plentiful, and most of the time your pets don't even need to come anywhere close to a rat in order to become infected with a disease carried by it. Rats pee as they run, and this means that they are stepping in it and running it around your home. If a rat were to pee and run in your pet's water bowl, the diseases that the rat carries will be passed on to that water bowl. When your pet drinks from it, they are ingesting the bacteria that causes the disease, and in time, it is likely that your pet will become quite sick and will need treatment.

Rats are very dangerous to cats, dogs and other pets, and also to humans too, and that's why you should make every effort to avoid these creatures being in your home. Pay attention to your building, and fix broken bits as soon as you notice they are damaged. An unloved home with plenty of entry holes is prime pickings for many a wild critter, and rats are one of the most prolific. They’ve used humans to make their way around the world, and now they’re using humans in order yo survive and flourish. They're eating our food, they're drinking our water, they’re living in our homes, and they're trying to kill us off. Or, at the very least, make us rather sick.

If you want to handle a rat problem the right way, make sure you use rat traps, and give licensed pest removal specialists a call. DIY jobs are often much more expensive than using the professionals, and you won't end up doing the job half as well. When you're talking about diseases as serious as these, this isn't a job you'll want to mess up.

For more information, you may want to click on one of these guides that I wrote:
How much does rat removal cost? - get the lowdown on prices.
How to get rid of rats - my main rat removal info guide.
Example rat trapping photographs - get do-it-yourself ideas.
Rat job blog - learn from great examples of rat jobs I've done.
rats in the attic
rats in the walls