Lastly, one of the greatest advantages of the rats is their speed. Metal detectors will sound a warning when they sweep across any form of metal, forcing a team to stop and dig regardless of whether it is a tin can or something more sinister. Since rats are trained to sniff for explosives, they yield far less false positives and can even detect plastic landmines. What takes a human deminer almost two weeks, one rat can do in just a day.