Dog Of The Month January 2025 - Katie The NYC Rat Killer Is a 12 lb Chihuahua Who Killed Almost 400 Rats In The Last Year

DNyuz - Katie the dog and Sarah Darby entered Prospect Park in Brooklyn beneath a full hunter’s moon. Ms. Darby turned on Katie’s red LED collar, unclipped her leash and Katie sprinted off, looking over her shoulder to make sure her mistress was following.

Katie disappeared around a bend in the paved path that skirts the Long Meadow. When Ms. Darby caught up, Katie was circling a trash can. “Ready, Katie?” She tilted back the trash can. A plump rat darted out.

A blurred chase lasted only a second. Katie snatched the squeaking rat in her jaws, whipped her head back and forth, and snapped its neck. She dropped the limp rat, and Ms. Darby used a folded paper towel to pick it up by the tail and drop it in the trash can, among banana peels and muffin liners.

It was Katie’s 363rd kill of the year.

Her 364th came nine minutes later. “Watch out,” Ms. Darby called quietly to a woman in a hooded sweatshirt who was jogging by the furry corpse, more than a foot long from nose to tail. “Oh, my god,” the runner said as she hurried off.

Katie weighs 12 ½ pounds and is about 4 years old. She is 28 percent Chihuahua, 16 percent pug, 16 percent rat terrier and 40 percent mutt. Ms. Darby, 50, an educational consultant by day, adopted Katie from a shelter in Texas, near the Mexican border, in 2022. Not too long after, Ms. Darby said, “I was walking her in a playground that had tons and tons of rats and she sort of revealed to me her interest in doing this.”

In 2023, Katie bagged 115 rats. With about a week to go this year, she’s closing in on 500. A color-coded Google map, titled “Katie’s rats 2024,” shows that about 40 percent of the kills were in Prospect Park; the rest were on the sidewalks of the Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods. All were within about a mile of Ms. Darby’s home, and nearly all, she said, had occurred within the orbit of a garbage can or bag of trash. Katie’s most prolific month was September. For some reason, her most productive day of the week is Thursday.

Holy shit. Katie is a bad bitch. And I can say that with the utmost respect since "bitch" is the colloquial term for female dog. 

From the shelter to the mean streets of New York. There isn't a rat that's safe. And what's crazy is she's only 12.5 pounds. That's like the size of a burrito. 

And I've seen the rats in New York before. They're the size of small children. And they can talk.

So as much as I'd like to open this month's contest up to the submissions, I think we can all agree Katie ran away with it. 

Major props once again to Stella and Dan for once again doing so much to help so many good dogs find good homes. This is really amazing. If you're in Chicagoland and looking to adopt, visit or check out PAWS or an area shelter. 

Here are all the pups for the month of January.