Morel Hunting with dogs?

[Bigcatch]

I went out last weekend with a local and his dog who he claimed could smell out morels, I think he's full of it...

 

 

[MOPanfisher]

I have always thought I could take a dog and teach it to find morels.  Would have to be the right dog though, something that wants a job and to please like a border collie or something.  But where would be the excitement of the hunt be then.

[dan hufferd]

I think this dude and his dog woody, possibly the camera man have been consuming the wrong kind of mushrooms and plants.

There are truffle finding dogs, and I think pigs in Europe. So who knows. Just saying mushroom dog makes me laugh, I don't know why.  

[BilletHead]

Not saying these guys have a dog trained to do this but canines have a great sense of smell. Some dogs are so domesticated some of their senses have been bread out. Remember dogs are predators and use senses to hunt. Dogs are now trained to sense glucose levels being companions to children with diabetes. Alerting parents of these children. Now dogs are being trained to sense cancer. Just seen where they were using plasma from non ovarian cancer and diagnosed ovarian  cancer patients. The dog in question could pick out the ones that had the cancer.  I think this is highly possible to train a dog for the purpose of morel hunting. We as humans once had much better sensory organs being hunter gatherers. I personally have a great sense of smell where Mrs. BilletHead does not. How many times have you been walking along, smell something and sniff a little harder throwing the nose a little higher in the air? You do it by habit not even knowing you do it. I don't even go into the cleaning, detergent section in wally world as it sets me on end. Heck I can smell a elderly grey blue haired lady with that artificial nose sinus piercing perfume half way across the store. Just like designer dogs we have had our senses bread out of us over time. That and we don't depend on a lot of those senses anymore. 

BilletHead

[ness]

I was thinking about this just the other day. My Brittanys can smell where pheasant USED to be. Of course there are the drug and explosive sniffing dogs, and the cool stuff BilletHead talked about. They use dogs (and pigs) to hunt truffles. A quick Google shows there is some discussion out there, but as rare, precious and hard to spot as those mushrooms are I'd think it would be a natural. The only thing that surprises me is that this isn't more of a topic.

[BilletHead]

OK we will test train you Ness. A shock collar, a leash and some woods filled with fungus. In all seriousness I did stumble on four nice morels next to the house this morning. Looked in a known patch,nothing then headed back and almost did a face plant tripping over them. Suppose it was primal instinct not to step on them

[dan hufferd]

Great pic's