Truffle Dogs in Italy, How They Hunt Italy’s Alfagia di Volterra, a specialty food company focused on truffles and based in Volterra, Tuscany, has been bringing diners the world’s finest Tuscan truffles for years. Though the company has three human truffle hunters, among the best in Volterra, who devote their days to finding the city’s best hidden truffle spots, they can’t do this without their specially trained canines. A breed known as the Lagotto romagnolo is considered the “truffle dog,” but Alfagia di Volterra prefer cross-bred dogs, specifically Springer Spaniels crossed with lines of dogs that have been truffle hunting for generations. The dogs who work with Alfagia di Volterra’s truffle hunters undergo years of training to learn how to sniff out the scent of the delectable truffle — and how to ignore the urge to get distracted by other stimuli and scents. “The training starts immediately after birth, whe...