Episode 64: Truffle Hunting with Your Dog

Laura is joined by Kristin Rosenbach, a dog trainer and truffle hunting expert. Kristin has been truffle hunting for 10 years with her own dogs, as well as offering training on how you can teach your dog to hunt for truffles.

In the Pacific Northwest, where Kristin is based, truffle hunting season starts in the fall and goes through the spring. Truffles are fruiting bodies of underground fungal networks and are often found near tree roots, but occasionally appear in other places as well.

Many breeds are suited to truffle hunting around the world, as long as the dogs are properly trained and physically sound. Dogs are trained to recognize and locate the scent of truffles buried underground, and in Kristin's case, they're trained to dig out the truffles as well (since they can more accurately pinpoint where truffles are than we can!).

Listen to the episode learn a bit more about Kristin's course on training your dog to hunt for truffles, or check it out here!

Transcript

Laura Reeves [0:40] Welcome to the Good Dog Pod! I am your host, Laura Reeves, and I am super duper excited, you guys! I’m being joined today by Kristen Rosenbaum, and Kristen is going to talk to us about truffle hunting with your dog. (I know, right?!) She has an entire online course that she’s going to talk to us about, and we are going to go from forest to fork in this conversation. I absolutely love this! Kristen is a truffle hunter. She’s a teacher, she’s a dog trainer in the Pacific Northwest. And I am so excited, Kristen, to have you join us.

Kristen Rosenbaum [1:24] Hey, Laura, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to talk to you.

LR [1:28] Excellent. So, tell me: How in the world does someone just sort of randomly become interested in truffle hunting and have been teaching this for ten years now?

KR [1:44] That’s a good question, and it is a little bit random. It actually all started because my husband and I went on a vacation to Italy. That was when I had truffles for the first time—loved them. I had discovered, at that time, that dogs were trained to find them, and I had this running joke on Facebook that I was going to teach my dog to find truffles. I kept joking about it. This was something that I carried on with for a little bit. So that was in the summer. In the fall, we brought home a puppy—the Belgian Tervuren puppy, da Vinci. I started to have this little craving for truffles. I thought: Well, where can I find them to buy, to just cook with? And when I started googling it—lo and bold! It turned out that they grow in the Pacific Northwest and in many other regions, too. At that time, I decided, hey, this might actually happen. 

LR [2:44] Kristen, that is so amazing that you were getting started with your dog on a dream. I know that people might be familiar with the breed that is sort of preferred, traditionally, in Italy, to truffle hunt with, which is the Lagotto Romagnolo. You tell me that many different breeds are used in different parts of the world. 

KR [3:10] Absolutely. There really is no one breed for truffle hunting. Any dog can do it. For me, I actually didn’t even know about that breed when I started this whole adventure, but when I brought my Belgian Tervuren home and I did a random google search and discovered that they grow where I live, it started to really get real. My joke became an actuality! 

LR [3:39] I love that!

KR [3:41] It was pretty funny. The breeder got a kick out of it, too. So I started doing my research and at about that exact same time, my Border Collie (Callie) had an agility injury. So now it’s fall, and I have a 3-year-old Border Collie who can’t do agility and is on very restricted activity. I have a brand-new puppy, Belgian Tervuren, and then also Cash, our Sheltie. None of them can do anything with each other. None of them have any jobs to do. I was thinking: Okay, now’s the time! 

LR [4:19] So, not only are we doing back-to-school here at Good Dog Pod, but fall is when you go truffle hunting! 

KR [4:26] Fall is when you start, here in the Pacific Northwest. The seasons are different throughout the world, but here in the Pacific Northwest, I will start hunting in September and I will hunt up through (usually) May. 

LR [4:40] Wow! There’s a long season. I have so many questions, Kristen. So you’re going to go hunting for truffles. Is this regulated in any level?

KR [4:50] It is regulated, mostly down in Oregon. Those regulations haven’t extended up here in Washington yet. But that’s where you’ll find the most restrictions on land use.

LR [5:03] Yes, Oregon has lots of land use requirements. How about throughout the country? I assume that truffle hunting is something you can do in other parts of the United States. 

KR [5:12] Yeah, it depends on the species. For example, here in the Pacific Northwest, we have what are called Oregon Black Truffles and Oregon White Truffles. Don’t let the name fool you! They grow all throughout the Pacific Northwest, from BC all the way down to Northern California. That’s just the common name. So we have those two primary species here in the Pacific Northwest. But then if you go to other regions of the United States, you’ll find what’s called a Pecan Truffle. You’ll see those a bit more on the East Coast and a bit down in the South. Then if you go to other countries, you’ve got other species over there. That’s where you’ve got the Paragon Truffle—which is the traditional Black Truffle that you find in the market—and then the Italian White, which is (in my opinion) the cream of the crop. And then there’s also a Summer Truffle and a Burgundy Truffle. In addition to all of those that are growing wild, there are farms. Down in California, there are some truffle farms. Australia is a big producer of truffles. They’ve got some big, successful farms down there in Australia. And then there’s farms and wild over in Europe. 

LR [6:27] Before we get too much further down the truffle path (sorry I couldn’t pass that up), talk to us. Truffles are basically fungus that grow on tree roots? Am I getting this right?

KR [6:40] Kind of. People will commonly refer to them as underground mushrooms, but that’s not entirely accurate. What the truffles are is they’re the fruiting body of the mycelium. The mycelium is the underground fungal network that connects between all the tree roots. The mycelium itself is what produces the fruiting bodies, which can be mushrooms or truffles, but the mycelium is also the underground network by which trees communicate with each other.

LR [7:15] Wait, trees talk to each other? That’s a whole nother podcast! I am not sure I can take that on. 

KR [7:21] They do. They send chemical messages and they also exchange nutrients via this mycelial network. 

LR [7:29] Okay. And I have heard a sort of random mythology that says that truffles grow around oak trees. Is that accurate or inaccurate? 

KR [7:40] That is one of the trees that you will find truffles growing on natively. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s typically with a Dougfir. But I will say from experience we have found them in many, many, many different habitats that are not necessarily what your textbook will tell you. I’ve even found them out in the middle of a field that was many yards away from any trees. 

LR [8:07] That is crazy. So any dog—not just a fancy Lagotto or even a purebred dog—any dog can be trained to find truffles under the ground? Correct? 

KR [8:20] Yes, absolutely yes! It’s really important for people to understand that truffle hunting is a learned behavior. That means any dog that is physically sound can learn to find truffles. Really, the only dog that might have some truffle trouble is your flat-faced dogs. But, really, I know some really fantastic Pugs and various other—

LR [8:52] I was just going to say: I own Pugs. Trust me, they can use their little noses! 

KR [8:57] It’s kind of one of those things that people would say, “Oh, are they at a disadvantage?” Sure, in theory, but I haven’t really seen it be a problem with any of them. As long as the dog is physically sound, they can do this, and they can do it at any age. I had a really lovely dog start last year at age 10.

LR [9:15] My goodness! Okay. So, in our theory of back-to-school and things we can do with our dogs—all kinds of dogs—this is a really great option if you happen to live in an area where truffles grow! How do you train a dog to find something buried—what—12 inches underground? 

KR [9:39] They vary in depth. This is one of those situations where there’s a lot of information out there on websites and in textbooks that are going to give you this average range of “just underneath the ducts to 6 or 8 inches.” And then you’ve got the practical experience. The books can only know so much! I will tell you they grow anywhere from just under that duct layer to—we’ve found one up to 18 inches deep. I’m sure they grow deeper, but my arm is only 18 inches long. That’s as deep as we went. 

LR [10:19] So you have to train the dog to find and indicate, and then does the dog dig the truffles out or you dig the truffles out? 

KR [10:27] In my training, and for my uses, I want my dogs to dig. It’s not required. But I do like them to dig because truffles really actually look like dirt. Unless the dog is guiding the dig, you really don’t have a great chance of finding it yourself. I prefer to have my dogs dig because what happens while they’re digging is they’ll move some soil and then they’ll sniff and they’ll reassess where the odor is coming from. The reason is that their process is they’re initially going to locate where the odor is coming out of the ground. But that doesn’t mean that the truffle is directly straight down from there.

LR [11:10] So the dog indicates at the surface layer that somewhere down there is a truffle. And you ask them to dig the truffle out because it’s easier for them to find it instead of you thinking you’re bringing home a truffle and it’s really a dirt clot? That’d be bad. 

KR [11:28] Correct, correct! I prefer my dogs to dig because their process is to locate where the odor is coming out of the soil. Then as they start to dig, they’re going to continually reassess what direction the odor is coming from. Just because the odor is coming out of a certain spot in the soil, doesn’t mean that the truffle is directly below that. It depends on the density of the soil and how the odor is actually moving through the ground. Plus, there’s also some saturation going on in the soil itself, so what the dog will do is they’ll move some dirt. They’ll sniff around the hole and reassess what direction they need to dig next. They’ll move some more dirt and reassess. They’ll move some more dirt and they’ll reassess. That way, they’re pinpointing as they’re getting close to the source (being the truffle). And then at that point, they know to target that truffle. Usually, that’s when (even though we can’t see it) a lot of the time, you can reach down there and there it is! Exactly where the dog put their nose. 

LR [12:33] So you reach in and grab it—not the dog retrieves it. 

KR [12:37] Correct. I teach my dogs to nose targets because what that allows them to do is dig to the perimeter, just the very edge of the truffle. And then I can dig around to pull that truffle out whole. Sometimes it’s really stuck in the soil, and you have to dig around and things like that.

LR [13:03] Does it have roots? You have to pull it out by the roots? This is all fascinating. You don’t understand. I’m so geeked out by this!

KR [13:11] No, not really. It’s just a fruiting body of the mycelium and so it doesn’t really have roots. It’s just sort of sitting there. So you just pull it out, and it’s this round clump of dirt-looking-thing, but it smells fantastic. 

LR [13:25] Oh my gosh. Okay! So when you are out in the forest, having a hike with your dog, and you say, “Find me a truffle,” he just toddles off and finds you a truffle? This is just fascinating. 

KR [13:41] Well, my theory is if we have done our job correctly, the dog is going to offer to find you any truffle in any environment that you are in. My husband has actually sent me a text message with a photo of a truffle when he was out on a walk with the dog because there happened to be a truffle where he was walking and one of them indicated, and because he doesn’t truffle hunt, he probably wasn’t real quick to know what was happening. She dug it up and threw it at him! 

LR [14:17] Like, yo! 

KR [14:19] Right. Callie in particular, if I’m not fast enough, she will dig it up and throw it at me. But the others just know to target and wait. There are people who will teach a dog to hunt only when they ask them to hunt and stop when they ask them to stop. I prefer to just manage my environment so that I’m only going to truffle-producing environments when I’m wanting to truffle hunt. Because that also allows my dogs to offer the activity, and that to me, is a bit of a consent to behavior because they’re saying, “Oh, we’re doing that thing,” and they’re the ones initiating it. That’s how I prefer to hunt with them.

LR [15:00] I’m still just so enamored of this whole concept. Most of us who have dogs have a basic understanding of how we train dogs to find things. Can you give us—without giving away your whole course, which we will make sure that people can get a link to in the show notes—some ideas of some of the things that you’re going to do to help train them to offer this behavior?

KR [15:26] Absolutely. It’s really interesting, working with the dogs, in the way that I do—simply because I try to keep everything as organic as possible. Typically, the process looks like two ends of a spectrum coming together. We will do a little bit of truffle work, and then we also do the foundation skills work, where we’re using food. The reason that I like to do that is it kind of takes out the human error. What’s happening is, when we’re doing search games, we’re doing various exercises, various homework with the food, it’s allowing the rewards to happen at the perfect time in the perfect place. And it’s allowing the humans to observe so they really, really understand what their dog looks like and how their dog is communicating the wide variety of pieces of information that they’re going to get when they’re truffle hunting. We have that end of the spectrum, where we’re working on these food games, these foundation skills where the dog and the human are learning the search skills and how to work with the environments and how to work with each other and how to read each other. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we start with the truffles and we don’t ask the dogs to search for them, but we actually back-change what we want with  the truffles. At some point, those two things come together, and then we start searching for truffles and progressing the game out into the field. 

LR [17:00] Very, very, very cool! I love that. I’ve just got to ask you: Truffles (truffle oil, all this stuff) are very gourmet. Very expensive. If you train your dog sufficiently well, can I go down and make back my course fee in a minute because my dog found a truffle that I can sell for a million dollars? How is this working for me?

KR [17:24] Well, I’ll be the first to tell you that here in the Pacific Northwest, our truffles do not have the market value that the European truffles do. That said, people can (and many people do) make money with their truffle hunting. It can be anything from selling the truffles that they find—they can go down to the farmers market. They just need to make sure they’re following all of their state’s regulations for selling. They can do land surveys for individuals. In any situation, you can have an arrangement with a landowner where you either leave the truffles with the landowner or you pay a fee or any type of arrangement that you guys come up with that is beneficial to both of you. Some people will lead little forays, taking people out on a tour. You’ve got a whole bunch of different options where people could make money on truffle hunting. Honestly, the majority of the people who train with me really just want to do it for fun. 

LR [18:24] Right, right! Because I want truffles for dinner tonight. 

KR [18:29] Laura, it is so amazing to come home and make dinner that you know your dog was responsible for! It is so cool! 

LR [18:38] Now, Kristen, you understand that I have hunting dogs. So, yeah, I totally get that! I have spent a lot of years eating food that my dog brought home for me. I think it is amazing, and I think it’s really a fun way—because there are people that don’t have the situation or the inclination or what have you to actually take a gun and go shoot a bird. So here’s a way to do something fun and active and search out your dinner with your dog and not have to have any of that other stuff. 

KR [19:11] Exactly. You know, the other thing that’s really nice—and I’m always reminding my students of this—is because what we’re doing is essentially recreational (unless you’re someone who wants to start doing this professionally, and still this will apply): it’s just a truffle. We’re not searching for people. We’re not searching for bombs. There is nothing high-stakes about it. If it’s not a good day, it’s just a truffle. Leave. 

LR [19:44] You just don’t have a truffle. That’s really actually very, very interesting, Kristen. We think about some of those high-stakes games that we play with our dogs. They’re games to the dogs. They’re not games to us. So I think that’s a really, really valuable point. They’re using a lot of the same skillset, just without the pressure. 

KR [20:04] Exactly.  

LR [20:05] Love it, love it, gotta have it! Okay, everybody: Foundation Skills to Field Training, Kristen’s online course, is available to you. We will make sure you have a link to that. Kristen, this is fascinating and fabulous, and I am so grateful that you came to tell me about it. My last question: You haven’t seen this new pig movie, right? There’s a movie about a stolen truffle pig (nw say that three times fast!) with Nicolas Cage that I am told everyone is raving about, but I think that combined with all the rest of it—we’ve got a perfect storm here for you!

KR [20:47] That’s true. I have not seen the movie. I do plan to see it. I just need to figure out where I can stream it so that I can watch it, but I’m looking forward to seeing that. 

LR [20:57] I think that dogs are a much better solution than pigs for truffle hunting, although pigs are cute. I was actually in conversation with someone who breeds Logattos, who do this in Italy. Somebody asked in the seminar why they started using dogs instead of pigs, and she said, “Because the pigs get stolen! Like this!” It’s much easier. Nobody wants to tell where their favorite truffle field is. If you put your dog in the car, it’s a lot easier to skate around than if you put your truffle pig in the car. I thought that was fabulous! 

KR [21:30] There is also the part about the pigs that actually want to eat the truffles. That part is a problem. 

LR [21:36] Yes, indeed! Well, this has been amazing. I appreciate your time tremendously.

KR [21:43] Thank you, Laura. This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you having me here.