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Oregon Truffle Festival kicks off with dog competition


Oregon Truffle Festival kicks off with dog competition (SBG)
Oregon Truffle Festival kicks off with dog competition (SBG)
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EUGENE, Ore.- Dozens of dogs from all around the country pawed their way into the Lane Events Center on Thursday for the Joriad Truffle Hunting Dog competition.

The event kicks off the 15th annual Oregon Truffle Festival.

“Just shows that the dog knows the odor The dog can hunt in kind of that ground area and now we're going to application,” said Joriad Competition Organizer and dog trainer, Kristina Leipzig.

It doesn't matter what kind of breed you are. All the dogs sniff and make their way around the arena, searching for that truffle smell.

The Oregon white truffle is grown in ideal conditions, making it one of the very few places outside of Europe to find the special relatives of the mushroom.

Once the dogs dig up the truffle, their handler stores it. The dogs who find most truffle-doused items become the finalists.

“Truffles have a particular sex appeal to them, I think, I just think they're kind of fancy and when I tell people my dogs hunt truffles and they say you find chocolates in the ground,” said Leipzig, “I'm like 'no the cooler truffles.’

But this kind of scent competition is not just for fun. Some handlers use this as a stepping stone to train their dogs for more serious reasons.

“I'm going to be taking a cancer detection class with him in March so eventually that's what we're going to be doing,” said Handler, Bonnie Granger.

Granger's father passed away because of cancer years ago.

She now thinks her dog can help people like him by finding signs of cancers early on. Something she wishes had been available for her father.

“It's amazing to watch the breed in general and what they can do with scent work and where they can carry us,” said Granger.

The dog competition is just one of the many events (including dog training) surrounding Oregon’s trendiest commodity, the truffle, this weekend.

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