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One of the main reasons they use Gambian rats isn't their smarts, it's their stupidity. They don't develop the same Pavlovian tricks that dogs do.
Over time, an explosive-sniffing dog will learn that finding a spot on the ground will get it a bite of food, and the rate of false positives goes up like crazy. Every dog has to be retired after a fairly short time. Similar things happen with drug dogs at the airport, although vastly more money goes into training them.
One of the more promising technologies for finding mines is a genetically engineered flower that will grow a different colour in the presence of the volatile organic compounds given off by explosives.
You airdrop ten thousand seeds, wait a week, and over each mine is a big red flower, in a sea of yellow ones.
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