A Rat with a Tiny Backpack Might Just
Save Your Life Someday

I will make every effort to avoid minefields, collapsed buildings, and rodents - trained or not.

It is nice to know that the rats in some parts of the world are useful and helpful. My experience is that rats here in the US, and especially Washington DC are destructive and dangerous in many ways.

Good plan, #1. But sometimes things don't go according to plan. You live in California, right? Isn't that sort of "collapsed building central" for the USA? Not wishing anything bad on anyone, but wars and natural disasters happen. Saving lives with trained animals sounds like a worthy thing to be doing.

Leave the rat, take the tiny backpack.

Spending the first 35 years of my life in the NYC area I'm not fond of rats, but these guys are kind of cute. They better train them to get used to screams because that the first thing the trap person will do upon seeing these critters. Unless of course the are smart Ldotters like us and read this article.

I am astonished to see a poster as smart as #3 perpetuating a threadbare myth. Our nearly 100 year old Southern California home has experienced numerous earthquakes and suffered only superficial plaster cracks. Our frame houses “give”, our masonry chimney was reinforced by the original builder. Once in a while I drive by the multistory brick apartment house where my newlywed parents “went to housekeeping” in 1931. It looks just the same and is fully occupied. Don’t those in tthe flat square states have anything to do other than wish Californians ill? Lifelong Conservative here who wouldn’t dream of wishing disaster on other Americans. They also rant about their states' being contaminated by fleeing Californians when simple logic should tell them that anyone leaving would be more apt to be a Conservative. I’m always reminded of the poster from Texas who once wrote in all seriousness: “I’ve never been to Californis, but I know I wouldn’t like it."

Fascinating concept. If their use becomes common, human nature almost ensures that somebody will come up with a way to counteract or repurpose those clever rescue rats. And quite likely it will be the Mexican drug lords who do it. (smh)

Good grief. Some are hypersensitive about any comment on California. I'm a native Californian, I have a LOT of great memories of the state, and some pretty awful memories of being in LA during the first couple of days of the King riots. Friends and family still there. Every comment about things that aren't perfect in California is not a personal attack. Fact: California is the second most earthquake prone state, after Alaska. That is GOING to increase the chances of buildings collapsing, compared to say, North Dakota. And the SE corner of Missouri is another earthquake prone place...home of the great New Madrid quake of the early 1800s that made the Mississippi River run backwards for two days according to eyewitness accounts. My wife was in the Bay Area on business when the Loma Prieta quake dropped the I-880 (double decker raised concrete freeway) which trapped a lot of people in their cars. I remember reading of the extreme difficulty of finding and rescuing people trapped in their crushed cars. Perhaps these trained search rats might be able so save some lives should a terrible collapse like that happen again.