Foothill College Renders 'Hoarders' Rats Adoptable

You've got to applaud someone who sees the redeemable in even the smallest, most reviled creatures.

That would be Sandy Gregory, instructor at the veterinary technology program at . And the creaures would be the 1,500 rescued rats that were in the A&E network's Jan. 10 finale of the reality TV show, "Hoarders."

Los Altos Patch thanks the San Jose Mercury News' Patrick May for ferreting out this gem at Foothill: a neutering operation to make them better behaved and more adoptable—all over the Bay Area.

May wrote Sunday in the Mercury how Bay Area-based Northstar Rescue stepped in to manage the rescue of the rats, and how Gregory has run the neutering operation at Foothill College. Last weekend, 35 students, four vets with scalpels and Gregory assembled to perform the operations on 30 rats. 

May described Gregory's motivation this way.

"You have a lot of groups spaying and neutering dogs and cats, like Fix Our Ferals, but there's nobody out there for the rats," Gregory said.

"'Rats get a bad rap as being dirty and attacking people in horror films," she said, then added: But they're just the opposite; they're incredibly sweet, social and very smart."

The rats are adoptable at Andy's Pet Shop, Northstar's main "adoption outpost," in San Jose. The rats initially were spread out among several outposts, including the in Milpitas, the , the in Novato, the . ( on Main Street is one of the local shops that act as a Northstar adoption outpost for other rescues, though not in the rat adoption case).