Recently, I watched a rat die naturally and it nearly broke my heart. It’s a strange feeling since I have taken the lives of so many rats before.

In our house, we refer to the summer of 2014 affectionately as the Summer of the Rat. Three out of seven days a week during that summer when I would take our dog, Eddie, out for his morning constitutional, I’d find at least one dead rat in one of the several rat traps we had set in our yard. While Eddie did his business, I tended to the business of disposing of the rat. I was always prepared to find one so I’d pick up the trap gingerly by its edges and drop it into the plastic trash bag I’d brought out with me. When Eddie was done, I’d use a smaller plastic bag to scoop up his poop and drop that into the rat bag, tie it up and walk it to the dumpster behind our apartment building.