Looking for truffles with your dog: digging
La truffle season has just started… and it did not escape the greedy that I am! A few months ago I made a introduction to digging with Musher. She loved it and so did I. We followed a session of Thierry de la doggy family. It's time for me to share this pretty activity to do with your dog. To be sure not to forget anything, I called Thierry back and I interviewed him… The search for truffles: that's a great idea of activity to test for the next vacation with your dog.
Let me start by introducing you to Thierry, a 300% dog addict! At least as much as me!
Dog trainer specialized in cavage
The Doggy Family is the name of the company that I created in Fontes, a small village in the Hérault. I wanted to work as a rabassier for truffle growers with my dog. To my great surprise, I saw that the truffle dogs were rather badly treated, they were starved… It made me want to do something different and to offer initiations to the dog-friendly cavage.
Cavage is first and foremost the pleasure of working and sharing a great experience with your dog.
My job is to make the master and his dog have a good time, to strengthen the dog's olfactory abilities and to make him work on his brain activity.
Cavage is the act of digging for truffles with a dog (rare mushrooms…) In addition to training his dog, I also suggest that the master have a real culture concerning truffles, we are not looking anywhere or anyhow… There are a whole set of regulations to follow …it's a complete training.
I also organize a lot of contests. This takes place on a 5 meter by 5 meter field in
which we previously buried truffles. The dog has 8 minutes to find some. The record was 31 seconds! If your dog is also setting a record time, he may be asked to work with a truffle grower.
The harvest being done from December to March, I organize the competitions in March.
I have a chocolate Labrador that I trained from the age of 9 months in the cavage. I have a second one, an English Springer that I trained when he was 2,5 months old. He is a hunting dog: he is an outstanding sniffer! He brings me a lot of truffles.
You know the world of truffles is a special world… I sometimes resell some and I am paid as a percentage of the harvest. Most of them end up on the plate! There are excellent recipe to make with truffles.
How to teach your dog to look for truffles?
The initiation takes the form of a game. We start by asking him to look for a treat hidden in the grass and we reward him when he finds it. Then we complicate the game and ask him to look for it while it is hidden under a stone. He will scratch the ground and start digging to retrieve it. It will then be necessary to strongly congratulate and reward him so that he understands that this is what is expected of him. In the last step, we end up burying it.
Then he is made to sniff an artificial truffle aroma. It is no longer the delicacy that is hidden but an object with the aroma of truffles. We reward him as soon as he finds it. We take the steps one by one until he finds him when he is buried. Thus by habit the dog will be conditioned to carry out this search.
In initiation you will not find real truffles on the other hand in wild it is possible!
Musher and Sophie : “Musher loved looking for candy! During our initiation, there were about ten other dog-handler pairs. When it was out of our turn, Musher was like crazy on the sidelines. Too frustrated that others do not hurry to find quickly. Good foodie that she is, looking for sweets is her favorite sport.”
No matter the breed and age of the dog, all dogs can look for truffles! Some dogs will be more adept at searching obviously. A malinois for example will find more easily than a bulldog because it is an innate sniffer dog. And then there are greedy dogs who will be happy to search for a reward and others who will not be passionate about this activity. They are like us, each his own!
During my initiations I had a lot of different races, the ssense of smell in dogs is highly developed: it is important for him to exercise it. And when he is offered an activity of this type, he generally loves it!
It is the reward that is the search engine for your dog (a treat, a caress, a bravo from you…). He will love having a good time with you!
I offer training that lasts a full weekend for people who come from afar. Otherwise, I spread the sessions over a week with one session every other day so that the dog has time to assimilate. A session lasts between half an hour and an hour. It requires a lot of concentration from your dog…
-> During my initiation with Musher, I attended a group session. It was an opportunity to meet dog lovers and gourmets! We had a great time and Musher fell in love with a 6 month old little dog they romped around with. The funny thing is that she raked all the ground after the session to check that no treat had been forgotten…. The food: it does not spoil!
Crowding
There is a lot of truffle producing regions. The Hérault department, for example, accounts for 30% of national production! In the Périgord you are also very lucky to find some. Provence-Alpes, Côte d'Azur, Lozère… In fact it depends a lot on the climate, there has to be a lot of sun and soil.
There are different varieties of truffles and they don't all have the same value. A truffle that you will find with your dog at Dijon will not have the same value as a truffle from the Périgord.
Musher and Sophie : “With Musher, we haven't found any and yet we live in the Hérault… we'll have to take a few lessons with Thierry. The Christmas holidays are approaching. I will be super proud to put truffles on the menu!”
A complete cavage training costs 350 euros.
Can a dog find truffles without classes? Yes, it can happen accidentally, but it is extremely rare!
With training, they are really taught to concentrate, to think… Without this, the dog can make mistakes and will not work properly. He will quickly get bored.
Moreover during the introduction to digging that I propose, the dog has the possibility of sniffing several varieties of truffles.
We also teach dogs to work together, a single dog can be disturbed by the presence of other dogs during the sniffing. The good thing about group initiations is that if he starts to get tired, by simple mimicry he will start copying the other working dogs, because obviously he too will want to have a reward! It motivates and stimulates him to see his friends.
I offer lessons on a plot of 2.000 m2. In this sense, the conditions are optimal: from home, you would surely be limited by the environment.
How to start digging with your dog?
To anyone who would like start digging with his dog, I would advise him to come and see me with his dog simply! (haha )
You know the dog can store up to 10.000 smells in his memory! It is enormous ! Cavage is really an activity in its own right! It will allow your dog to channel his energy. He will work on his brain activity: you will see that this research work will tire him! I once had a labrador who was hyperactive, he was taking medication to calm him down a bit. Finally, thanks to the cavage, I managed to make sure that he spends enough in his head and in his body. It's a great activity to do with your dog. This is an opportunity to forge fabulous bonds with your dog and develop a great bond.
Musher and Sophie "On a walk, even if Musher isn't looking for truffles, I still make him look for treats. When her back is turned, I hide a small biscuit under a stone, I move away a little and then I tell her “find the candy”. OMG!!! She opens her nose wide and usually takes no more than 30 seconds to find the precious treasure. She loves this kind of game! "
It happened once that a master cried during one of my sessions… He was so moved when his Labrador found a truffle that he had tears in his eye, it was very moving!
I hope this article has made you want to try the digging with your dog. She's a pretty activity to share with your dog. And even if you don't live in an area with truffles, he will learn to look for a smell and it's definitely an activity he will enjoy 🙂
Happy truffle hunting everyone! And I promise as soon as we find one with Musher, we'll share a nice photo with you.