>>2496525they can be trained to sniff for anything and have routinely been used for truffle hunting throughout history
>A detailed description of the truffle dog was given by the English sports writer John Henry Walsh in his The Dogs of The British Isles (5).The truffle-dog is a small poodle (nearly a pure poodle), and weighing about 15lb. He is white, or black-and-white, or black, with the black mouth and under-lip of his race. He is a sharp, intelligent, quaint companion, and has the "homing" faculty of a pigeon. When sold to a new master he has been known to find his way home for sixty miles, and to have travelled the greater part of the way by night.
He is mute in his quest, and should be thoroughly broken from all game. These are essential qualities in a dog whose owner frequently hunts truffles at night - in the shrubberies of mansions protected by keepers and watchmen, who regard him with suspicion. In order to distinguish a black dog on these occasions, the hunter furnishes his animal with a white shirt, and occasionally also hunts him in a line.
These dogs are rather longer on the leg than the true poodle, but have exquisite noses, and hunt close to the ground. On the scent of a truffle (especially in the morning or evening, when it gives out most smell), they show all the keenness of a spaniel, working their short-cropped tails, and feathering along the surface of the ground for from twenty to fifty yards. Arrived at the spot where the fungus lies buried, some two or three inches beneath the surface, they dig like a terrier at a rat's hole, and the best of them, if let alone, will disinter the fungus and carry it to his master. It is not usual, however, to allow the dog to exhaust himself in this way, and the owner forks up the truffle and gives the dog his usual reward, a piece of bread or cheese; for this he looks, from long habit, with the keen glance of a Spanish gipsy.
