Lucy’s first find!

Lucy our truffle dog has only recently undergone formal training, so we have been constantly reinforcing her training at home, in the garden, and in the truffiere to expose her to a variety of environments and embed what she has learnt. Part of this training is to hide targets of fresh truffle under soil in various places in the truffiere especially under our oak trees. It’s important for me to turn over many areas of soil including those where the targets are not hidden. It’s important I touch lots of areas and walk different paths to make Lucy’s job challenging. I then leave the targets alone for a short time to let the scent settle before letting Lucy in to find them.

Once ready, I let Lucy in and sent her off to hunt on my command. But she stopped at a tree that was rows away from my hidden targets, so I called her to keep walking. But she stood and wouldn’t move, giving that look as she does when she finds an odour. She was successfully implementing her training. I walked over to her and down on my knees started scratching around in the loose soil, commanding Lucy to “show me” where it is. She pointed with her nose, and when I moved more soil there it was, Lucy’s first real truffle and our second find for the farm!

As you can imagine I was jumping with joy, rewarding Lucy with handfuls of her favourite treat. Roast chicken. Reflecting on the years of hard work that has gone into this farm, little finds like this make it all so rewarding and optimistic for more truffle finds deeper into the winter season and the years to come. This was a momentous day, in that our scent training is working, and also that we have another truffle!!

This truffle was carefully covered back over with soil to allow the flavour to fully mature and flagged for another hunt later in the truffle season. And more importantly will be sampled on a delicious risotto with a fine bottle of red to match.

‍