How to Kill Rats Without Harming Your Pets
Most of what is sold for rats is a problem in a house with a dog or a cat. Here is what to use instead, and the one risk almost nobody plans for.
The danger is not your pet eating the bait. It is your pet eating the rat.
Most people who put out rodenticide are thinking about the obvious risk, which is a dog getting into the bait station. That risk is real and it is also the one everybody manages. The one that catches people out is secondary poisoning: a poisoned rat leaves cover, slows down, becomes easy to catch, and a cat or dog eats it. The anticoagulant is still active in the rodent’s tissue.
A poisoned rat is more likely to be caught than a healthy one, so the exposure is not a freak accident. It is close to the expected outcome if you use rodenticide in a house with a hunting animal in it.
If your pet has eaten a rodent you suspect was poisoned, call your vet straight away rather than waiting for symptoms. Anticoagulant effects are delayed by days, and by the time something looks wrong you have lost the window where treatment is simplest.
Which leads to the short version of this article: in a house with pets, control rats with traps and exclusion, not poison.
What to use when there are animals in the house
Ranked by how well they hold up with a curious dog or cat in the room.
Enclosed snap traps
A snap trap inside a covered housing is the most practical answer for a home with pets. The mechanism is only reachable through a rat-sized opening, so a dog nosing at it cannot get to the bar. Bait with peanut butter and set them along the wall runs where you are seeing droppings.
Electronic traps
A sealed box that delivers a charge when a rat enters. The working parts are fully enclosed, there is nothing toxic involved, and you dispose of the rodent without handling it. More expensive than snap traps and they need batteries, but they are among the safer options around animals.
Live traps
Catch without killing, reusable, and no risk to a pet beyond a shut door on a curious nose. The catch is what happens next: releasing a rat means finding somewhere legal and far enough away that it does not simply come back, and relocated rats often do not survive anyway.
Glue boards, which we would skip
Cheap, easy to set, and the worst option in a house with animals. A pet that steps on one is a veterinary visit. Rats caught on them frequently are not killed outright, which means an agitated animal that will bite and defecate where it is stuck. They are included here because people ask about them, not as a recommendation.
Wherever you set them, set them where the rats already travel. Rats follow the same routes repeatedly, so the useful places are along walls, in the gaps behind and beneath appliances, and anywhere you are finding droppings or gnaw marks. Traps in the middle of a room catch nothing.
Food baits, not poison baits
Peanut butter is the standard for good reason: it is strongly scented, rats have to work at it rather than carrying it off, and if a pet gets to it nothing happens. Cheese, dried fruit, and bacon fat all work. So do nesting materials, since a rat setting up will carry cotton, twine, or shredded paper back to a nest just as readily as it takes food.
Check the traps often. A trap left unchecked for a week is a dead rodent attracting flies, and it is also a trap that is not catching anything else in the meantime. And leave them out longer than feels necessary. The common mistake is pulling traps after the first couple of catches, when what you have actually done is removed the least cautious members of a population that is still there.
Trapping without this is a treadmill
Rats came in for food, water, or shelter. Removing individuals without removing the reason just makes room for the next ones. The pet-owning household has one specific problem here, which is that a bowl of food and a bowl of water left down overnight is exactly what a rat is looking for. Pick both up at night.
- Store dry pet food in sealed containers, not the bag it came in.
- Keep bird feeders elevated and clean up what falls beneath them.
- Pick fruit and vegetables as they ripen, and pick up anything that drops.
- Raise garden beds and planters where you can.
- Use bins with lids that actually latch rather than sit on top.
- Clear woodpiles, dense ground cover, and debris away from the walls of the house.
What the natural options can and cannot do
Peppermint oil, castor oil, cinnamon, and pepper all get recommended for rats, and rats genuinely do dislike strong smells. What they will not do is clear an established population. A rat that has found food and shelter inside your walls will tolerate an unpleasant smell to keep them. Treat scent deterrents as something that makes an area marginally less attractive at the edges, not as a treatment.
Be careful which oils you use around animals. Several essential oils that are fine for people are toxic to cats in particular, so check before you put anything down in a house with one.
Encouraging owls onto a property does work as a long-term pressure on an outdoor rat population, and a nesting box is a pleasant enough thing to put up. It is not a response to rats that are already in your kitchen.
Rats in the walls are not a trapping problem
If you are catching rats and still hearing them, or you cannot find how they are getting in, that is an exclusion job. Our rodent technicians work pet-conscious programs and can seal the entry points rather than just thinning the population.
Keep reading
How Do You Know When All the Mice Are Gone?
Droppings, damage, scratching, and smell. How to read the evidence and tell whether a mouse infestation is actually over.
Read articleRodentsHow Many Babies Do Mice Have?
A female mouse can have 3 to 14 pups at a time, up to ten times a year. Here is how fast mice breed and how to get ahead of it.
Read articleRodentsHow to Get Rid of Mice in Walls and Ceilings
What draws mice into wall and ceiling voids, the signs they are already there, and the methods that get them out.
Read articleGot a pest problem? Get a free quote today.
Tell us what you're dealing with and get a free, honest quote over the phone. No inspection fee, no obligation. Same-day service in most cases, free re-service if pests come back, and every visit backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.