Home › Forums › Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Homework Forum – Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Mary & Lola › Reply To: Mary & Lola
With Lola and formal tracking, no, not really, but thank you for asking.
In truffle hunting we don’t want the dog following “our” path and so we use our human scent as a distraction and we can very quickly see as instructors if a dog is using that as a tool to locate source. It is more common in young dogs with less world experience. In tracking (especially if you are laying your own tracks) you do want the dog to follow it.
There several dogs who truffle hunt and “track” very successfully! The two are not mutually exclusive you simply want to be aware of how you as the track layer, and you as the person who is hiding truffle targets, are interacting with your environment.
The one thing we would suggest to that effect when you do start training formally for tracking is create a very distinct and different “Start” Routine and different gear.
In the “best of forum” which maybe isn’t up (should have Lois & Monza ) doing this in LVL 3. When you get to that, let us know in the spring & remind me in Lvl 3 and i’ll make sure you get the corresponding videos. Lois is an assistant instructor on these forums as well (she has been busy as of late), but she’d be happy to talk to you about differences in hunt sequences she uses. We talk a lot more about hunt sequences in Lvl 3.