The rats like to live in interconnecting tunnels just under the dirt. They stay in the holes until night or they feel safe to come out and grab some chicken food or worse, the chicken eggs. So we just put the chickens away and let him loose. The first time we busted the ground open to look for rats and a few ran out. He quickly snatched one up and started chomping on it. We told him to drop it, he did, but looked at us confused since we had just told him to get it. It only took twice of doing that and he figured out his job. He would sniff around and then pounce the ground, attacking the dirt. They would flee their nests and then he would charge after them, give them one good chomp, spit them out and move onto the next one. He's awesome. He even see's the ones trying to escape by squeezing thru the chicken wire fence and snags them off the fence before then can get away. It's like he was made for it. He's always went buck wild over rodents, but i think that's just a dog thing. If a squirrel is in the back yard, he bounces around the house until we let him out to chase it. Luckily he's only been able to catch one squirrel. I still can't believe he managed that though.