The other day, JJ McDermott sat beneath a large umbrella watching his children, Fox and Raven, splash around in the family's backyard pool. It was a sweltering summer afternoon, and everyone was enjoying the chance to cool off when Fox suddenly popped
out of the water.
“He came running over and said, ‘Dad, there’s a rat!” McDermott told The Dodo.
At first, McDermott assumed the kids had found another mole, the kind of animal they typically pull from the water. But when he knelt down and saw a little brown animal with a long tail clinging on to the pool filter, he quickly realized she wasn’t at all who he’d imagined.
“I ran over and saw it was actually a rat — or maybe a mouse! That’s still up for debate!” McDermott said.
She wasn’t a mole, but the family didn’t have time to decipher whether the animal was a mouse or a rat in that moment. The poor baby was sopping wet and seemed desperate to be saved.
“We knew she needed help 'cause she was barely holding on to the edge of the filter, trying to keep her head above water,” McDermott said.
McDermott jumped up to grab a pool skimmer while Fox and Raven kept a close eye on the little rodent. Two-year-old Raven was especially eager to help.
“Raven, who loves animals, pretty much took charge of the whole thing,” McDermott said, “and I figured it was a good opportunity to let her save the rat herself.”
Together, McDermott and his daughter lowered the skimmer into the water, just beneath the baby rodent’s feet. Then they lifted the skimmer and, after a couple of tries, successfully carried the shivering baby away from the pool and onto a grassy area.
But she wasn’t out of the woods just yet.
“The rat was definitely shaken up once we got her to dry land,” McDermott said. “I was going to put her in the sun to dry off, but it was SO HOT that day that I thought a shady spot would be better.”
You can watch footage from the rescue here:
The family monitored the baby for a bit, then returned to the pool once they knew she was OK. When McDermott went back to check on her 20 minutes later, she “scurried away quickly into the bushes and disappeared.”
The baby rat returned home that day a little more damp than usual and with many stories to tell. The McDermott family couldn’t stop talking about the rescue, either. And while they have yet to see her again, everyone in the family still thinks of her fondly.
“Now my daughter wants to check the bushes every time we go outside to see if the ‘baby moutse’ is still there,” McDermott said.
