In-person and online education for aspiring truffle dog teams, dog trainers, and pet owners
Hi, I’m Kristin
I’m here to guide you in one of the most rewarding partnerships you’ll ever build.
The truffles are just the beginning.
Truffle Dog School
Truffle Dog School is designed to meet you exactly where you are in your learning journey. From beginners to professional dog trainers, get the guidance you need to succeed in truffle hunting with your dog. For 16+ years, my relationship-focused approach has guided hundreds of students worldwide, helping teams grow from first finds to trusted hunting companions.
Each path is designed to take you from beginner to truffle hunter.
Online Course
The ONLY comprehensive online truffle dog training course
- Detailed training, from start to finish
- Downloadable homework plans
- Lifetime access with 10+ hours of video
- Online support thread inside
- Course improvements and updates
- Priority scheduling for private lessons
VIP Coaching
Online coaching membership for all levels of truffle dog teams
- Access to the full online course
- Monthly coaching calls with Kristin
- Special topic sessions and webinars
- Growing resource library
- Access to past recordings dating back to January 2025
- Substack Community subscription
Best value
Private Lessons
Take support to the next level and work exclusively with Kristin
- In-person instruction in Arlington WA
- Virtual options available
- Truffles provided for all in-person lessons
- Fully customized truffle dog training program
- Substack Community for packages of 4 or more lessons
- Hybrid options available
Sample the online course. Sign up for your free 30-minute lesson!
Client testimonials
Truffle lessons with Kristin have been an amazing experience. It’s always fun, there is no pressure on me or the dogs, Kristin caters to what you and your dog need for each lesson. I was training a younger dog and a much older dog and each lesson was individualized for each dog. My older dog was losing his hearing & his eyesight wasn’t that good but with Kristin’s lessons he was finding truffles in no time and it was so very wonderful to give my retired performance dog one last fun thing to learn and do in his older years. All ages, all breeds, all experience levels, truffling is something everyone & every dog can learn and have fun doing!
Chris/ Washinton USA
I think what I enjoyed most was how the lessons centered around teamwork. A lot of other sports and venues focus on doing the correct thing at the correct time. Your lessons centered around communicating with your dog and making sure enjoyment came first. Once you taught us both how to be engaged and connected with each other, the truffle hunting came naturally. I have been able to use these skills in other types of training too so your classes helped us both in the forest and outside it!
Aleesha/ Wasington USA
Read the latest article
What Happens to the Forest When We Love a Place to Death
A widely-known truffle hunting site near me has been loved to death. This is about what’s actually happening underground and what responsible hunters need to do differently.
When mycorrhizal networks break down, the trees that depend on them become more vulnerable to drought, disease, and stress. The undergrowth plants begin to disappear. The wildlife that depends on that undergrowth for food and shelter loses habitat. In Pacific Northwest forests specifically, the northern flying squirrel depends on native truffles and other hypogeous fungi as a primary food source, and plays a direct role in spreading fungal spores through the forest. Deer, elk, and black bear consume truffles opportunistically as well. When truffle ecosystems are degraded, the effects don’t stay underground. They move through the food web in ways that most people standing at the trailhead never consider.
The forest doesn’t care whether it was a rake or a boot. The damage has the same name.
Work With Kristin
Learn from the
“Trainer of Trainers”
Kristin has been pioneering truffle dog training in the PNW for 16+ years. She founded 3 businesses, developed curriculum for 4 leading dog training programs, and had others model their own programs after hers.
Grounded in Partnership
“It’s just a truffle”
Through Kristin’s genuine, gentle, and meaningful approach to teaching humans and dogs, her words, having been quoted for many years now, will remind you…”It’s not about the truffle. It’s about you and your dog.”
Connection, Communication and Cooperation
Having continually revised her curriculum over more than a decade, these three pillars have emerged as the foundational building blocks for a lasting and rewarding truffle hunting partnership shared with your dog now and for years to come.
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Latest Instagram Posts
Finding wild truffles with your dog is an act of reciprocity. The forest offers something extraordinary. We bring attention, patience, and a dog whose nose can read what we cannot. What we owe in return is care.
Wild truffle hunting lives in the space where the dog’s world and the forest’s world overlap — underground, invisible, governed by relationships between trees and fungi that took decades to form. To enter that space well, you need to understand dogs. And you need to understand nature. Both. And right now, as this practice grows, that second piece isn’t always part of what’s being taught.
The forests that make this possible are not infinite. What grows beneath our feet is ancient and delicate and irreplaceable in any single lifetime.
I put together a free stewardship guide for anyone who wants to enter these places as a guest worthy of the invitation.
Link in bio.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #forestecology #trufflehunting #scentdetection
Happy Earth Day. 🌱
If you hunt truffles with your dog, today feels like a good day to talk about what we owe the forests we love.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about site stewardship — the practices that protect the ecosystems we depend on and the ones that quietly damage them even when we mean well. That article is still there if you haven`t read it.
Today I`m making the student quick reference guide available as a free download — a practical one-pager you can keep, share, or bring into your own teaching.
Both links in bio.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #earthday #sitestewardship #forestethics #trufflehunting
Shadow found his first site this week. I named it after him.
If you saw our recent acclimation walk reel, this is what that kind of work leads to. I wrote about what happened in the forest — the find, the restraint it took to get there, and what it taught me about trust and the partnership that builds in places you`ve never been before.
New essay on Substack. Link in bio or copy here:
kristinrosenbach.substack.com/p/shadows-reach
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #workingdog #belgiangroenendael #trufflehunting
We didn’t find a truffle today – and that was the whole point.
This was an acclimation walk near a site I plan to hunt in the future. Shadow wore his everyday gear, we walked the trail, and when he chose to take me off it I followed. No ask, no cue. Just paying attention to what he wanted to show me.
The terrain is challenging – low branches, downed trees, dense ground obstacles. I needed to see how we’d move through it together before asking him to work here.
He was focused enough that I reached to unclip his leash and stopped myself. That moment of interruption would have cost more than the leash was worth.
A successful outing doesn’t always end with a truffle. Sometimes it ends with information.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #trufflehunting #workingdog #dogtraining
Shadow has already found truffles in the wild — but that doesn’t mean training stops.
For this session I set up a blind search in a field we’ve worked in before, choosing it specifically because the underground activity mimics conditions at one of our more challenging future hunting sites.
Real distractions.
Deliberate variables.
A training scenario designed to prepare him for what’s ahead.
He searched, located the dig site, gave me his invitation, and we harvested together. Four times. In 37 degrees and rain.
This is what intentional training looks like.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #workingdog #dogtraining #detectiondog
What does your dog’s invitation look like?
Something has been weighing on me for a long time, and I finally wrote about it.
There`s a truffle hunting site I used to love. I stopped going when it became widely known. Recently a former student told me the undergrowth is almost entirely gone. Trampled. Bare. Holes left open across the ground.
We talk a lot about what rakers do to truffle sites. But we don`t talk nearly enough about what we do – when we keep returning to the same widely-known location, season after season, and treat it like it has no limit.
The forest doesn`t care whether it was a rake or a boot. The damage has the same name.
Full essay linked in bio.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #trufflehunting #workingdog #detectiondog
Transport and hunting need to look different.
When you`re walking in and out to your hunting area, you`re not hunting. You`re getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible – but you`re also staying observant in case your dog picks up a truffle scent along the way.
Transport isn`t a free sniffing walk. It`s not a formal heel. It`s purposeful movement with connection.
What does that look like?
Leashing up and walking briskly back to the car. Carrying a toy. Having your dog on a tug toy so you`re connected through it. Collecting cookies at your side. Or just walking together while you talk to them.
The key: purposeful pace, maintained connection, and observation. You`re moving with intention, but you`re ready to stop if your dog catches scent.
This distinction matters because you`ll likely pass truffles on your way out. Your dog needs to know when you`re hunting versus when you`re transporting – and you need to be ready to entertain it if they pick up odor along the way.
Questions about working with your truffle dog? Link in bio.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #workingdog #dogtraining #detectiondog
"Just do what I did and your dog will hunt truffles."
If only it were that simple.
Every truffle dog team is a unique combination. Your dog`s drive, temperament, physical abilities. Your experience, learning style, physical considerations. How you function together.
There`s a framework we follow – but within that framework, you make decisions best for YOUR team.
I`ve worked with high-drive dogs who move fast and don`t want to wait. Methodical dogs who are thoughtful about their environment. Handlers who prefer step-by-step instructions. Handlers who don`t get on the ground at all.
Same framework. Completely different applications.
This is why there`s no one recipe. Your team doesn`t need to look like anyone else`s team. You need a framework you can adapt to the dog in front of you, the human doing the work, and how you function together.
That`s what we explore in the VIP Coaching Program – how to work within the framework while honoring what YOUR specific team needs.
Questions about training your truffle dog? Link in bio.
#truffledog #truffledogtraining #workingdog #dogtraining #nosework
