Home › Forums › Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Homework Forum – Developing a Reliable Truffle Dog Team › Tim & Molly › Reply To: Tim & Molly
Hi Tim
Yes, the matting is an issue for harvesting. It needs to come up depending on what it looks like around the tree prior to actually harvesting. Thanks for photos. Is the weed fabric just in a small square section around the tree or down the whole row? Either way, it’ll need to come out. While scent can permeate it, accessing truffle should molly alert there is a pain, among other things. It makes harvesting difficult as well and makes odor move oddly and pool in odd spots. So if you’re ready to start checking, we recommend it coming out.
As for the disurturbed earth.
It is something to be aware of. As soon as you start finding real ones that point will be moot. Make sure when you plant some to really compress the ground around it.
It also depends on what you want, but as far as overall training goes, a little dig is fine IF you can tell the difference between exploratory digging and alerts. You are really good at reading her, so if you can do that, then yeah it’s fine (and as long as it is a little dig, not a pit). If you have a hard time telling the difference between exploratory digs and alerts then we should address it by you investigating each time when she manifests the behavior proving that you will come in and check whenever that behavior is offered. She won’t get rewarded unless there is a target.