Can your dog dig up a luxury item for your dinner? Truffle hunting is a popular pastime
A truffle hunt was our favorite day of a recent trip to Italy. Hiking beautiful countryside with dogs, then eating delicious scrambled eggs and soft, young Pecorino Romano cheese with a freshly found truffle shaved over the top: What could be better?
But you don't have to travel to Europe to go truffle hunting. You can teach your own dog to hunt for the treasured tubers, and depending on where you live, you may well be successful.
Truffles are found in the Pacific Northwest — which ranges from northern California into British Columbia — and from the southern United States into Ontario. As with most scenting activities, any dog can learn, although professional truffle hunters seek certain qualities in their dogs.
At Truffle Hill in Australia — Australia is a primary producer of truffles — truffle hunter Adrian Mielke looks for dogs with high drive and stamina who are food-motivated and don't mind searching in wet and cold conditions — cool, moist air holds scent closer to the ground.
"In our experience, the best breeds are Labradors or kelpies, but many mixed 'hybrid' breeds have been very successful," he says. Other dogs with good scenting skills include beagles, German shorthaired pointers, spaniels or other retrieving or hunting dogs.
At Black Truffle Lodge in Italy's Umbria region, where we went on our hunt, Mac (more formally known as Nathan McMillan Ryde, co-owner of the lodge with his wife, Francesca Chiacchiarini) says truffle dogs are started as puppies simply by playing fetch with them to encouraging their retrieving instinct. Gradually, the ball is switched for an egg-shaped plastic container with holes, which can hold the truffle and disseminate its scent while protecting it from destruction by rambunctious puppies. Mac and truffle hunter Luca like using dogs who are a blend of springer spaniel, English setter and pointer. Later, young dogs in training go out with more experienced dogs to learn the secrets of truffle location.
What if you don't live in an area where truffles are found? Your dog can still learn, thanks to online training courses and the availability of truffles by mail or from your local gourmet store.
And you don't need a fancy dog such as a Lagotto Romagnolo, considered by some to be the Lamborghini of truffle dogs, thanks to their Italian heritage and traditional use in truffle hunting.
Washington state-based truffle hunter and dog trainer Kristin Rosenbach offers lessons in person or online (wagnificentk9.com). She's had clients succeed with many different breeds and mixes, including a Vizsla, a Staffordshire bull terrier, flat-coated retrievers, an Anatolian mix and a papillon. Her own dogs are two border collies, a Shetland sheepdog and a Belgian tervuren, the first of their breeds to truffle hunt in the Pacific Northwest.
"Honestly, the only requirement is that someone has a good relationship with their dog," she says.
As with any detection dog training, positive reinforcement coupled with scent association is key. Your dog should view hunting as a game with plenty of tasty rewards (not the truffles, though) or other desirable incentives, such as play with a favorite toy.
Rosenbach's top tips for training dogs to find truffles are to use real truffles (not truffle oil), train outdoors and move the truffle underground as soon as possible. During training, she recommends staying away from truffle-producing locations, counterintuitive as that may seem. That allows you to control as many variables as possible so you can set up your dog for success.
Once a team in training is proficient at a mock truffle hunt — a blind hunt in a forest that Rosenbach knows does not produce truffles — she takes them out for a forest lesson.
Truffles are being cultivated and discovered in many new areas, so your dog could surprise you once trained.
"I suspect truffles are growing in a lot more places than we think they are, and that's just because there aren't enough of us out there looking," Rosenbach says.
by Kim Campbell Thornton
Do you have a pet question? Send it to askpetconnection@gmail.com or visit Facebook.com/DrMartyBecker. Pet Connection is produced by veterinarian Dr. Marty Becker, journalist Kim Campbell Thornton, and dog trainer/behavior consultant Mikkel Becker. ©2023 Andrews McMeel Syndication
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Pet Connection: Truffle hunting is a popular pastime for dogs
