Aussie Truffle Dogs is Australia’s first registered truffle dog breeding and training business, formed to provide purebred, registered working dogs to fill the harvesting needs of the truffle industry. Georgie Patterson breeds Welsh Springer spaniels and Field Spaniels on her farm in central Victoria for the purpose of hunting out these ancient delicacies.

First, let me explain what a truffle actually is. A truffle is a much sought-after fungus that grows at the base of certain trees. It is considered a delicacy, is used widely in Northern Italian, French and Istrian cooking, and features in many international haute cuisine recipes. They’re usually expensive, and they have a distinctive, pungent flavour, and therefore they are used only sparingly in most recipes. They fall into two broad categories: black and white. White truffles are much sharper in flavour than the black, and they are often served raw with pasta or on salads. The black truffles have an earthier taste, something like a mushroom.

According to the writings of the prophet Muhammad, truffles were the “manna from heaven” that God sent to feed the Israelites.

The first black truffles were introduced into the southern hemisphere only as recently as 1993, in New Zealand. They are generally produced in the colder regions. In Australia, the industry is very new. The trees that truffles normally form a symbiotic relationship with, such as elms, oaks and hazlenuts, were injected with the truffle fungus. The success of this initiative has led to a burgeoning local industry. The industry is, at present, harvesting one tonne of fresh truffle a year. By 2013 this will likely increase to ten tonnes. Given that they are very light, ten tonnes is a lot of truffle!

Traditionally, pigs were used to hunt out truffles. But, though they are intelligent animals, they are often ruled by their stomach when truffles are involved. Dogs have been trained to sniff out the delicacies without consuming them. The dogs detect the scent of ripe truffles and mark the spot for the truffier to start digging.

That’s where Georgie Patterson comes in. Georgie, as earthy as the very object her dogs seek out, trains truffle dogs. As Operations Director of Aussie Truffle Dogs, Georgie is paid by owners of truffières (farms where truffles are grown) to hunt out the ripe truffles. She travels to country towns all over Victoria. “I’ve been everywhere in Victoria, even to towns I never realised existed.” Right now, because of the newness of the industry, many truffle-growers, or truffiers, are secretive. There are around 40 known growers in Victoria.

Georgie believes the dogs should be harnessed rather than let loose on properties and given free reign. “They need to know that this is work time, and they’re there to do a job.” There are a few breeds of dog capable of detecting truffles, but she’s convinced field and Welsh springers are by far the best.

“Your dog will only be used for truffle harvesting for 12 weeks of the year, so you need to choose a breed carefully because you have another 40 weeks of keeping that dog entertained! Fields and Welshies seem perfect. They are biddable, loving and responsive, and should adapt to the 12 weeks on and 40 weeks off easily. They are both gundogs, used for their scenting abilities.

“English springers, beagles and kelpies or kelpie crosses feature quite regularly in Truffieres around Oz. But you need to remember that the working breeds run up to 80km per day, seven days a week, 365 days a year – that’s a really deep run line around a suburban backyard for 40 weeks in the off season! We’re not really interested in trying other breeds and firmly believe that a dog will work better if trained by their owner. We sell training packages and help with training of our purpose-bred puppies. We feel that dogs already owned have been exposed to things that may, unfortunately, inhibit their training and trainability.”

The field spaniel has an interesting history. It was nearly extinct after WW2. There were four left. A Welsh springer was introduced into the mix to keep the breed going. But the British don’t believe in hereditary testing, which checks DNA for problems that might arise, for future breeding purposes. “This is something we can almost perfect for the industry. Purebred, pedigreed, registered dogs should be used. We can certainly establish a line of good truffle hunters as each generation goes on. We can replicate or use the same genes to produce another dog that is already working well within the industry. We’re trying different things with each litter we breed and keeping records on what works and what doesn’t. We want the truffière owners to keep records of rotten truffle, missed truffle, and anything that may reflect on how a dog is or isn’t working. We’ve taken something that we already love doing (working with and breeding dogs) to another level and we are looking forward to the challenges that this industry will present. It’s common knowledge that Pigs find 100% of Truffle and dogs 80%, so it is our aim to lessen this margin and I believe that this is possible.”

Georgie was involved firstly in the breeding of spaniels. Truffles came later. “We were always thinking about growing something on our property but we weren’t sure what we wanted to do.” The Spaniels ended up dictating what they grew. It just happened that they were breeding the ideal dog for the newly-introduced truffle.

The intrepid Georgie first encountered the truffle industry by accident.

“I had an inquiry from someone who thought that they had purchased two field spaniels, they actually turned out to be working English springer spaniels, but the breeder of these used them to find truffles. This bloke promised to take a field spaniel and see how they went finding them, but he turned down the offer of a pup about six months later. So I hit the internet and made my own contacts in the industry, and went to Tasmania to see how it was done.”

The truffles Georgie grows right now are mainly for the sake of training the dogs. “If we wanted to train truffle detection dogs, then it would be helpful to have our own truffière to work. This is also the reason we have different types of truffles growing, so we have a couple of different seasons to work the dogs.”

Different types of truffles? Now it gets complicated. “We’ve got the Perigord Black Truffle, or Tuber Melansporum, the Burgundy or Summer Truffle, or Tubor Aestivium, and we are just putting in a few Bianchetto, or Tuber Borchii, these are an Italian white truffle, not to be confused with The Italian White Truffle – Tuber magnatum. No one has as yet cultivated this truffle in commercial truffières, and this is why it is the most expensive of all truffles.

So, what industry is Georgie in – breeding spaniels or growing truffles?

“We’re contract harvesters and breeding puppies specifically for the truffle industry. We introduce our litters to truffle scent at an early age and use a modified temperament test to choose those puppies that show potential to be truffle hunters. We in essence remove some of the variables so that these puppies should be relatively easy to train in the detection of truffles.”

Eventually, the truffle industry will grow so big that everyone involved will need to have a trained truffle dog at the ready.

“We gave a presentation at this year’s AGM and indicated that people need to be more organised and getting this side of their business up to scratch. When their trees have been in for three years they need have decided if they will purchase a puppy and train it, purchase a trained dog, or use a contract harvester. If they want to purchase a puppy they need to do so then and have it trained and ready to start checking their trees at four years of age. I can see that there will be some disappointed people around if they don’t start getting organised. The best age, dependent on the individual dog, is around 12 months.”

For Georgie, the decision as to which side of her business to develop will be easy.

“I really don’t know anyone who could be breeding dogs properly and make money. I think the socialsiation and rearing of litters is really important, so I find it time-consuming and expensive. I also have a rare breed so they’re not that popular. That makes it more difficult. People always want their puppy tomorrow and that just doesn’t happen with field spaniels. Welshies are more popular, so it’s a little easier in that regard. The training of dogs and growing truffles go hand in hand. Once we’re fully producing our own truffles, we’ll have more opportunity to train our youngsters on real truffle rather than oil. This in turn will make the job much easier and give us more opportunities if we have problems with clients’ dogs that are not working to their best ability or have a problem with their training. We all hope that eventually we will just be able to work within the truffle industry as harvesters and that we will have a regular clientele wanting puppies to train for themselves.”

Anyone interested in harvesting truffles should first consider contacting Georgie. For more information, go to www.aussietruffledogs.com.au

Published in Pet Lifestyle, Winter, 2008