The Steel City Ratting Coalition hunts down rats in Ohio

The pitch for the Steel City Ratting Coalition couldn’t be any clearer.

“Yinz got rats? We’ll bring the dogs dahn,” reads the group’s Facebook page.

On a Sunday evening, the ratting group — which uses dogs to hunt and kill rats for pest control, also known as canine rat abatement — is called to an Ohio poultry farm. The property owners spotted rats scurrying from their peacock coop, an 1820s building original to the site. In addition to the well-known disease risk and property destruction that a rat infestation brings, rats are also known to steal eggs and eat chicks and goslings.

“If you have chickens, you have rats,” the property owners tell Pittsburgh City Paper. Once the rats invaded their coop, they killed a brood of 24 goslings in a single night, impacting a conservation breed on the endangered species list.

“It was the most heartbreaking thing ever. They are ruthless,” the farmers say.

After the rats outsmarted traps and the resident barn cats — and not wanting to use rat poison that could harm other animals or their young children — the farmers sought out the Steel City Ratting Coalition.

Since its creation in fall 2024, SCRC, the only organized ratting group in the region, has made the rounds, accepting jobs anywhere within an hour’s drive of Pittsburgh, and joining a roster of modern ratting organizations springing up worldwide to revive a centuries-old practice. Despite ratting’s long history, the group contends its aims are now entirely modern, providing an “eco friendly and more efficient/humane alternative to traps and poisons.”

While the Pittsburgh group mostly tackles rural areas, where property lines are clear, the dogs can work off a long-line harness in the city and could “totally do alleyways,” founder Amanda Barnes tells City Paper.

At the Ohio farm, Bob, a wiry border terrier, springs into action, sniffing around the coop’s perimeter and immediately picking up a trail so hot that he starts biting and pawing at the building’s siding. After running inside the coop, a rat rouses, and Bob nabs, shakes, and kills it instantly before dropping and turning it over to Barnes, his handler. In it for the thrill of the chase, the dogs don’t eat the rats, immediately moving to their next target and leaving Barnes to scoop kills into a “rat bucket.”

Barnes and her husband James started the Steel City Ratting Coalition to offer what she describes as mutual aid to farmers and others needing help with rodent infestations. Currently, the volunteer-run group doesn’t charge for its services, accepting only gas money and occasional treats for the dogs.