A couple of days ago, my wife did something that I wanted to do quite a while now: we went truffle hunting. I found online a forester lady, who organises forays for small groups during the truffle season (from the early summer til December or January), and we decided to have a try for a full day.

On November 1st, we joined her in a “secret” location somewhere in West Sussex in order to look for this very special mushroom, with the help of her fully trained dogs Zeb the Labrador and Ella the Cocker. After a long route and a morning Truffle bloody mary to celebrate Halloween and get some extra motivation, we made our way to the woods in order to find the brules where the black diamonds usually like to find residence.

After a few hours of unsuccessful hunt, the excitement started to fade away and doubt to emerge: “will I have the chance to see a truffle today?”. At midday, we all had lunch, and even our forester shared with us her growing frustration. No signs from animals in the areas we explored, and no major signs of activity from the dogs.

Dogs… the dogs!

The whole morning, dogs ran around, chased pheasants and other animals, rolled in the leaves, and were more willing to try to get their reward biscuits without even trying to deserve them. At lunch time, Zeb got tied to a tree in order to prevent him from stealing our lunch, one of his favorite activities… Several times they started to dig in the ground in a very energetic and forceful way

At 2pm, the forester tried a last attempt and followed a path that she seemed to recognise from a previous visit in the area. “More choke in this area, this looks more promising” she said. And suddenly, Zeb started to smell the ground and dig in a much more gently way then he did during the morning. The forester recognised this behaviour straight away and ran towards the dog (quick reaction was an absolute necessity as the dog would eat the truffle if we didn’t pay attention) to retain him, went on her knees and started to smell the ground on the very specific point targeted by Zeb.

“YES !! A sweet smell that smells a bit like sweet corn”. And it really does smell like sweet corn, as we all had the chance to stick our nose on the ground.

“Not sure if the truffle is still there… Zeb, find the truffle!” And the dog kept digging, until this very unique moment when a black ball jumped from the ground under the “oooooh” of the fascinated audience.

Our first truffle of the day – or how this silly dog became the hero of the day.

Ten meters away, it’ now Ella’s turn to dig the ground. Another truffle! Even Ella, who did absolutely nothing but slacking the whole morning…

In total, the dogs found about ten truffles that we all shared between ourselves as would the pirates after some pillaging. And this is with our hands full of truffles and other mushrooms that we headed back home after what turned out to be a very good day. Still empty not even two hours before heading back, we finally made this day a success by just:

  • Keeping trying… to find another spot, another area, that the forester was convinced it would work. Several failures, and one success – twenty minutes were enough to gather our treasure.
  • Trusting the dogs. Even the most unpredictable companions, deprived of conscience, inexhaustible players with poor discipline, can turn desperate situations into winners when they express their talent. It is just about putting them in the best conditions to excel and work for you where and when it matters.

I can’t imagine how my evening would have looked like if we had decided to stop our search at 2pm in order to have a coffee on the field, or if we had just kept the dogs on a leash. It would have certainly been a very usual Sunday night. But it would have never looked like this.

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