An animal shelter in Chicago is placing feral cats into businesses with rat infestations. It's part of a program called "Cats at Work", launched by the Tree House Humane society as a way to find good homes for strays and abandoned cats and help clear rats out of alleyways and company buildings.

Property owners or businesses feed and take care of the cats, and in return, the cats hunt, kill, and scare away the rats. Sometimes just their presence is enough. Animal experts say that rats can smell the pheromones of their natural predator, and that can sometimes be enough to clear them out and keep them away.

Since 2012, "Cats at Work" has taken in over 1,000 cats who might otherwise have been euthanized.

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