While falling down an unrelated internet rabbit hole, I came across an ad for a ‘Trüffelhund’ - truffle search dog - course. Two things I love: Dogs and Truffles. Very tempting.
Have any of you done one of these courses? If so, were you happy with the course, would you recommend your course or trainer? What level of skill did you/your dog need to enroll? Any recommendations or reviews would be appreciated.
Thanks!
just before you get excited about going ‘wild hunting’ for truffles 
… the ‘plantations’ of truffles are private property (in Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, and even here in Switzerland), and you might need also a license…(a friend of mine co-owns a ‘plantation’ in Spain, and, given the price of the truffles, they have methods to assure wild pickers do not access the property…(which might not alwasy be nice to dogs)
Thanks, Izzy!
My motivation isn’t actually finding truffles per se, but rather I’m intrigued at the idea of a course as an addition to standard nose-work sports. More into the fun of learning than anything else.
(Kind of like herding courses or Treibball. We’ve done these as a fun way for a non-working dog to channel instinct. My shelties would never be called upon put those skills to real use - but the class was a lot of fun for them. )
The course whose ad caught my eye is indeed held on a plantation. Looks like a side business for the owners. And given that their Trüffelhund courses are booked out for the year, a popular one at that.
If it’s not about truffles, did you ever think about a mantrailing course?
Should be fun too and might even be useful some time. And if it’s only “let’s go find who stole my garden gloves” (in hope the neighbour’s kid doesn’t go missing).
btw. searching for truffles on a truffle plantation … how proud can you be of a dog finding one there? 
Yes, I’ve done Mantrailing; it’s a lot of fun. That’s what got me thinking about other nose-work options.
I had the pleasure of caring for a guest Lagotto mix recently. This dog was 99.99% nose, working with her was so different from working with my herding dogs, quite fascinating. Garden search games were a big hit.
My guest has gone home now, but when the Trüffelhund ad popped up, I thought that this would have been right up her alley. So now it’s on my list of things to check out.
(Any dog of any flavor can enjoy nose-work games/sports, btw. The collies had a blast at mantrailing, no matter that they… erm… did not excel.)
So much for Lassie 
We were looking at the truffle course, but decided against it because I am not fond of truffles. Yes, I know that makes me an unsophisticated cretin.
We’ve been doing mantrailing for about 3 years, Emi is really good at it. And I think it’s good for us in terms of interacting with her. I need to incorporate nose work games, etc in our daily stuff. Her daily walks are fairly short in terms of distance, but take a long time as we have to sniff everything.
You’re not alone. I’m no fan of clubs, otherwise I’d offer you to start one.
Neither clubs nor truffles for me!
Our dog was trained (Zurich basic training) by a guy who also does truffle courses. Never proceeded to the truffle course, but I really do want to do so sooner or later…
A bunch of Groucho Marx’ club members here
@Meloncollie have you thought of this? Dogs can sniff out Parkinson’s disease, study shows
now that Roche (?) is launching their blood test for Alzheimer in Switzerland, you could have the perfect storm at home! 
More people should read this stuff. Then it might prevent randomers from shoving their hand into my dog’s face “so she can smell them”.
Dogs like to lick my hands. I’ve always assumed it is because they are good judges of character and I am a really nice guy. Now I will start to worry that I should be going for a check-up. Actually, letting a dog smell your hand is much preferable to turning your back and…
the opposite will happen, they all want to know whether they’re healthy. It’s claimed dogs can smell cancer too.
As to “so she can smell them”, it’s worked for strange dogs an me for decades that I hold out my hand to them (not shoving it into their face though, LOL. Distance is everything when meeting a dog.)
An other strange thing people do is tapping strange dogs on their head and then being surprised if they get bitten. Even I bite when someone grabs my curls without asking.
that’s too funny. Well, with the selectivity and sensitivity (from a CT perspective) that the dogs have shown, I would not hesitate to believe it.
All this Parkinson’s dog story, comes actually from a British woman who could smell it on her husband! (you can google her). Doctors’ didn’t believe her, until…her husband was diagnosed. Through GC/MS (the same that they use in airports to check if you have been dealing the days before ) they found the specific biomarkers (molecules) that she could smell, and they trained the dogs to detect them. Mind blogging. And yes, most cancers also release specific metabolites that dogs can pick up. Some other dogs can detect melanomas (skin cancer). But don’t worry @KiwiSteve , they might be licking the taste from the latest roast you have eaten ;-).
In my case, cows lick me (hands, arms, back, and whatever they can reach)…because I sweat like a pig while biking up, and they enjoy the salt from the sweat… BTW, even cows or horses have 10x better smell capabilities than most humans…
oh, by the way, there are some funny trials also, where men can actually distinguish -double blind trials (through underarm T-shirt sweat smell), ovulating women…
Which way did they run?