Standing on a tiny blanket in her blue-and-white crate, Charlotte peered up at her owner Chloe Hedrick as she was fed bits of matcha with a spoon.
“Rats can eat almost anything people can eat,” Hedrick said, explaining how the metabolism is similar to humans. They should not take in too much caffeine, but a little bit each month isn’t so bad, she added.
Charlotte, an albino Rex rat, has pink eyes and smooth, white fur. Like many domesticated rats adopted in North Texas, she’s spent some time living at the Rhome-based DFW Rat Rescue.
With an influx of wild rats causing a frenzy in some major U.S. cities, organizations such as DFW Rat Rescue provide a safe place for domesticated rats to live and be adopted by families. These rats sometimes are given a bad rep compared to their wild counterparts but have needs similar to any other pet in need of care and affection, owners say.
Whereas wild rats are typically more agile and thinner, domesticated rats tend to be more plump and tamer. This is because these rats often come from a long line of descendents who have been domesticated, similar to pet dogs or cats.
Mary Matthews founded the local rescue in 2018, finding homes for about 3,000 rats that would otherwise be left to fend for themselves, be used as bait for pet snakes or live in one of the few pet stores that will have them.
Matthews previously operated dog rescues but felt “there was a need” for a similar service for domesticated rats as many animal shelters don’t have the resources to take them in.
“What are you supposed to do when you have this pet that you got at a pet store, and the animal rescue organizations that are out there aren’t able to take him in?” Matthews said of these rats. “That’s kind of the hole that I fill.”
She operates the rescue from her house, providing her tiny guests refuge in large crates with “comfy hammocks” and fresh food. While most rats she takes in are from the area, she’s also provided a home for some from out of state or other large Texas cities, including San Antonio.
While she has taken in up to 150 rats at a time, it isn’t always affordable or sustainable, Matthews added.
It’s common after a family takes in a domesticated rat that’s hard to care for, that it’s released instead of finding a suitable home, she said.
“It should be considered animal abuse to let your rat go outside because you can’t take care of it anymore,” she said. “But with that being said, there aren’t a lot of animal shelters or organizations that can take in a rat.”
Major cities waging war on wild rats
To be clear, the rescue’s work isn’t with wild rats.
Major U.S. cities have redoubled efforts over the past decade to limit the spread of such rodents, which can carry diseases that can infect people.
Mayors in New York City and Chicago have waged war against these pests, often by allocating millions of dollars dedicated to rodent control. For the 2024 fiscal year, Chicago increased funding for its Bureau of Rodent Control by $1.5 million.
Dallas does not have the same wild rat problem — but that doesn’t mean the issue is non-existent.
In 2023, the pest control company Orkin listed “Dallas-Fort Worth” as the 22nd “rattiest” city in the nation, coming behind Detroit, San Francisco and others. But North Texas ranked higher than the year prior with sightings of wild rats increasing since COVID-19.
This increase is due largely to increases in human waste and trash as a result of the pandemic, said Janet Hurley, who coordinates pest management programming for public schools and other educational institutions in the state through Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service.
“If they know there is nobody around and nobody’s watching, they are opportunistic,” she said of wild rats. “They will take advantage of whatever.”
Dallas’ rat problem is small compared to other large cities, which could be explained by a few factors, including overall population density and a lack of a robust underground network, she added.
Still, Dallas has made efforts to keep wild rats in check, such as by removing illegal dump sites that create areas in which rodents thrive, code compliance assistant director Brian Morris wrote in a statement to The Dallas Morning News.
“We have implemented four proactive illegal dumping teams, which patrol the city daily to remove illegal dump sites,” Morris said.
For the 2022-23 fiscal year, these dumping teams with litter removal groups in the city got rid of more than 18 million pounds of trash and debris, he added.
Protecting domesticated rats in Dallas
While Dallas has increased efforts to control rodents, some owners say that one part of the city code can help. In Dallas, it is against code to release a rat into the wild, whether domesticated or not.
The code is consistent with state policy, which prohibits owners from abandoning domesticated animals. The similar policy in Dallas, which also applies to domesticated rats, should protect them from facing an uncertain fate outside of captivity, Matthews said.
“You wouldn’t do that with your dog or cat,” Matthews said. “There are dogs and cats that live outside. There are coyotes and bobcats and that’s kind of the difference between the domestic rat and wild rat.”
Though domesticated and wild rats can typically be distinguished based on appearance and behavior, Matthews said she also encounters people who want to give her rats she cannot take in.
“I don’t take in wildlife,” she said. “I can provide some support and resources but for the most part, I try to stay away from that because there’s not really a good place that you can release them afterwards.”
Hedrick said Dallas’ city code makes people think twice before releasing domesticated rats, which she said are intelligent and develop unique bonds with different humans.
While Charlotte gets more “snuggles” from Hedrick, she expects more playfulness from Hedrick’s husband. She also recognizes her own name when Hedrick says it.
Before adopting rats through the rescue, Hedrick, who lives in Dallas, used to adopt rats by word-of-mouth and social media.
But since 2020, she has adopted more than 45 rats from the rescue, seven of which she currently has at home. The rescue provides a service that might otherwise not be available, she said.
“I do honestly feel like if people didn’t have DFW Rat Rescue to turn to, that there would be way more rats that would be let loose because there’s nowhere to turn,” Hedrick said. “It’s easier to say, ‘Hey, I have a cat. Can you take it?’ versus ‘I have a rat.’”
