Home › Forums › Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Homework Forum – Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Tim & Molly › Reply To: Tim & Molly
It’s okay she couldn’t find it. What is interesting and you’ll want to pay attention to- which you know is a fact right now because you are placing the targets (or someone is) is when she is struggling to pinpoint and pay attention to ‘what’ that looks like. It will be invaluable information later. There can be a multitude of reasons why she glanced over it. Dry soil, yes, especially if it is fine as that doesn’t allow odor to escape as much. Maybe it wasn’t off gassing as much. What were you using- truffle pieces or oil? There is far more variability with the real thing in terms of how they off-gas.
Keep in mind that the longer you cook targets the more the scent will be infecting the environment. If it is dry area, cooking a decent amount of time (4 hrs is pretty darn good) it will have come out of the ground and dispersed, not clinging to much (because it’s dry) and be weaker there despite the fact technically more of it is in the area- so it is not surprising it was difficult to locate. More of it, diluted, with less of a focal point. Does that make sense? It’s ok though!
An hr jump is a lot in cooking time each day. Admirable, and if you feel she is doing just as well as previous day, keep at it, but when you start to get in the 4-12 hr+ range complexity jumps because now all that off gassed material is moving around the environment more. We kind of urge you, if she seems to be having a tough time, to do 1/2 hr increments, or vary it. But 2 out of three with obvious indication she was close to pinpointing but struggling is a really good step! Those scenarios often take more practice, and that’s why we do it. It’ll get easier the more you do it with her. After a few more successes she’ll have more experience to draw from on how to locate in that kind of scenario.