I understand it isn't entirely differcult teach them this skill either. Just takes patience and mental/emotional conectiveness with one's pooch.

I'd train my dog to hunt mushrooms if he weren't such a pain in the ass to go walking with in the wet autumn ( he's a little, hairy poodle mutt, and retains mud like a sponge... ) Maybe my next hound..

Yes really.

And dogs who sniff out cocaine cannot smell cocaine. There is no odor to cocaine. It is the adulterants that the dogs sniff in both cocaine and heroin.

Of course dogs also love smelly socks and sometimes underware which they like to shread with their teeth in a frivolous manner by shreading it all over your living and bed rooms.

Anyway I beleive it weould take one hundred Benjk Rin Tin Tin looking dogs to find a single mushroom.

If you live in the Pacific Northwest you sureely do not need dogs to sniff out shrooms since you can find them by walking for a few hours in a single day you most likely would find a patch of Blue Ringers on a lawn and believe me when I say that you will see what looks like a brown rug over a greeen lawn.

Mj

Dogs can be trained to sniff out ANYTHING with a smell. ANYTHING. With Truffles, the dogs are trained by giving them bits of the pugne t fungus in the food the dog eats - Very simple... with most other things they are trained to sniff out, including those things which are biologically dangerous (like chemical constituants of cocaine, to use your argument...) one only need ASSOCIATE a tasty treat with the smell of mushrooms. Doggy finds the thing you want him to, and he gets a tasty yummy... Just like any traing technique. Sit, Stay, Come, Roll over, Find Shrooms!

BUT, John IS right about not really NEEDING a dog for this, especially if you're a REAL hunter.

Then again, maybe he's just protecing himself against a possible shift in the Seattle mushroom-hunting balance....
Hmmmmm...

Come Fido... Here boy..

anyways, off topic, but my dad taught my dog to search for his doggy treats which he hides in various spots around our backyard for him to look around for...dunno if that would be considered "exercising" as he calls it, since he'll be wasting all that hard earned exercise on that one doggy treat

one thing to learn about german shepherds, hip displacements are a real big issue. don't teach ur dog how to catch frisbees in the air, or one day u'll see your dog suffering in pain which might lead to u having to put him to sleep

cheers