Moments later, following several squeaks, Rommel, blood dripping from his mouth, appears with the rat, and the hunters cheer. "Go on Rommel, get it," the group shouts, as the dog thrashes around in the rubbish. Reynolds, 77, will sometimes pound trash cans with a metal stick to send rats scurrying, while Middleton frequently drops Rommel, a Jagdterrier, straight into dumpsters. "It's a bit like X-Men," says Alex Middleton, a 36-year-old dog trainer. Shorter-legged dogs such as Jagdterriers flush out rodents from piles of garbage, construction debris and bushes while faster, longer-legged dogs like Bedlingtons stand back, ready to pounce. They have been chasing vermin for about 30 years and have maintained their nocturnal meets during the pandemic, albeit slightly less regularly. That hasn't deterred the men and women volunteers of R.A.T.S. Shortly into the coronavirus crisis, America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of "unusual or aggressive rodent behavior" after restaurants and offices closed, disrupting food sources. Legend has it there are as many rats in the city as humans (some eight million), with public-health officials regularly testing new techniques to control the population, including placing dry ice in rat burrows to asphyxiate them. They live for the job," explained Richard Reynolds, organizer of the Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society, or R.A.T.S. The dogs, mostly terriers, pant and strain at their leashes before diving into trash bags and emerging seconds later with a convulsing rodent between their teeth. Late on a Friday night, eight dog enthusiasts and their pet pooches prowl several dark alleys in New York's Lower East Side with one mission: to hunt and kill as many rats as possible.
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