Successful rehoming of a truffle dog: Who? Why? How?
The successful rehoming of Jasper, a 2 year old English Springer Spaniel who is already trained to find truffles.
Sometimes a truffle dog may not be suited to a particular truffle job. I started training Jasper an English springer spaniel from RedHill truffles from when he was 1 year old along with his owners through the beginner course to intermediate. Jasper was doing really well when truffle hunting with 1 or 2 people but when a large group was involved, he became distracted due to his naturally shy personality. We tried quite a few different methods to see whether we could get him through his nerves.
RedHill Truffles revolves around agritourism and Jenny and Mike could see how their beloved dog loved the job but not the audience. They decided Jaspers personally was more suited to a quiet truffle farm without truffle hunting events. So instead of trying to fit Jasper’s personality to their farm they decided to fit the farm to Jasper’s personality putting Jaspers needs first. I am always so impressed when dog owners put the needs of their dogs first even if the decision is hard.
They came to me for suggestions as to any truffle farms where Jaspers could suit. I knew of a few farms which would suit but ended up suggesting a farm in Mitta Mitta. Owner Scott has a very calm and confident personality which works perfectly with shy dogs. He also has another English springer spaniel named Darcy a couple of years older than Jasper. Darcy has got to be one of the friendliest dogs I ever met. I knew they would both get along perfectly the first time they meet, if the meeting with my dogs was anything to go by back when we first started truffle hunting at Scott’s farm in 2017.
In late June 2024 Scott came down to pick up Jasper and it worked out nicely that it was already pre organized that I was doing my annual truffle hunt at Mitta Mitta just two weeks later.
Along with the truffle hunt with my two dogs, I was also able to run through Jasper’s training and his personalised truffle dog training handbook. At the truffiere we then did truffle training exercises with the ripe truffles Kovu found to explain Jaspers body language and aid in communication.
As you can see from the video Jasper is thriving in his new family.