When police canine handlers Dean Poletta and Warren Rogers decided to set up a truffle dog detection agency as a side hustle, the industry was little more than a hobby in South Australia.Farmers hire dogs including Mr Rogers's koolie, Ruby, and Mr Poletta's labrador, Gus, to sniff out truffles on their properties.They are bringing on new staff and training up extra dogs.
"The dogs are finding these things that can be up to an inch or six inches under the ground," Warren Rogers says.The tricky part is stopping the dogs from damaging the sought-after fungi, which sells for up to $2.50 a gram. "Pigs are natural foragers so will eat truffles unless they're trained to eat something else as a reward," he says.As for the growers' dogs, one of whom is appropriately named Truffles, they're handy if not as thorough as Ruby and Gus."They're obviously doing it weekly and our dogs are still couch potatoes."