Each year in January and February, truffle hunters across the United States start to get excited. In February of each year, we here in Eugene and surrounding areas get to enjoy The Joriad, the North American Truffle Dog Championship. The first round of competition took place on Saturday, February 8 at the Lane Events Center Large Animal Arena. Then, the finalists from that move on to the field competition, in which they actually go out to the forest to see who can find the most truffles within one hour. The winners were announced at Willamette Valley Vineyards in a special awards ceremony complete with the Parade of Dogs, wine, and truffle-infused food.
One thing we learned at the event was that on February 6, 2024, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek designated February as Oregon Truffle Month. The Oregon Truffle Festival submitted the application for the designation.
The Joriad is a combination name from Jory, Oregon’s state soil, and the Olympiad. The Joriad is the annual kick-off for the Oregon Truffle Festival, and it is the only truffle dog competition of its kind in North America. The competition starts with the first round in which spectators can watch dogs and their trainers compete to find hidden truffle-scented targets that are buried in soil on of the floor or the area. Dogs have 5 minutes to find 5 truffles, and the top five dogs who find five truffles the fastest move on to compete in the final round in the field, at a secret location outside Eugene.
Sweep, a 10-year-old female mix breed dog handled by Michelle Dundas, was one of three dogs to compete in the first round to find as many truffles as they could in 5 minutes. Sweep ended up besting out the rest of the competition to find 5 truffles in 2 minutes 59 seconds. That earned Sweep a spot to go out to the field (an undisclosed location, not open to the public) to see how many truffles the dogs can find in 1 hour. After the hour is up, the truffles are weighed.
At the Lane Events Center, a table was showcasing a basket of white truffles along with 1 very large and a couple smaller black truffles, giving attendants a chance to smell the differences between them. Both have an earthy, musky aroma, but the white truffles do smell much more like fuel. It doesn’t sound appetizing, but this translates into a deep rich, mushroomy, nutty taste on the palate. The black truffle, weighing in at 15 ounces, was just an ounce short of the world record truffle. The white truffles were for sale for $40 per ounce.
These Truffles Are Not Chocolate!
When someone mentions truffles, your first thought might drift to chocolate confections, especially with Valentine’s Day just around the corner! However, these truffles are something quite different — it’s actually a fascinating fungal organism that develops beneath the soil as part of a complex relationship with tree roots.
In Oregon’s rich soil, four distinct edible truffle species thrive, with white truffles being particularly abundant. These subterranean treasures have a unique characteristic that might surprise you — when freshly harvested, they emit an aroma reminiscent of petroleum. Yet for many in the culinary world, this is a prized earthy essence that works best when paired with creamy, buttery dishes where the fat molecules can hold on to each molecule of scent and flavor. As noted truffle expert Dr. Charles Lefevre, a mycologist and Oregon Truffle Festival co-founder, explains, “The earthiness becomes more pronounced when they’re dried.”
Rather than being cooked, truffles are typically served in delicate shavings atop dishes like pasta or eggs. If you get your hands on some black or white truffles, place them in a container with eggs, butter, cream, rice, or salt to infusing the distinctive flavor into these ingredients.
The Art of Truffle Hunting with Canine Companions
While the lagotto romagnolo breed dominates truffle hunting in European territories, any dog with proper training can develop the skills to detect these underground delicacies, as the dogs participating in the Joriad showed. There were several lagottos, but also poddles, a Rhodesian ridgeback, labradors, collie mixes, a puggle, and many other types of dogs.
Experts agree that dog harvesting is better than harvesting with rakes. Dog harvesting is gentler on both the ecosystem and the truffles themselves, while also ensuring that only properly matured specimens are collected, Rake harvesting can’t discriminate between ripe and unripe truffles, so you can end up with unripe or overipe truffles on the market, which affects the industry by lowering the quality and skewing what people think of as a good truffle.
The Joriad 2025 Winners
This year, there was such an abundance of truffles in the forest that 16 truffles was a 5th-place win. In years past, finding 16 truffles would have been enough to be a 1st-place win. but this year, the numbers and the size of the truffles found was astonishing. The handlers get to keep some of the truffles they find, but the Truffle Fest relies on many of these truffles to use in their dinners and other events. But since there were so many found this year, the handlers got to keep a large number of what they found.
For comparison, last year’s winner found 41 truffles in one hour. Here are the 2025 winners:
5th Place – Moomin, a 4-year-old mini Australian Shepherd mix, and his handler, Brandon, found 16 truffles.
4th Place Bunny, a 4-year-old Lagotto Romagnolo, and her handler, Richard, found 51 truffles.
3rd Place – Sweep, a 10-year-old mix and her handler, Michelle, found 67 truffles.
2nd Place – Buster, a 3-year-old Lagotto Romagnolo and his handler, Bryan, found 74 truffles.
1st Place – Rosey, a 4-year-old labrador Retriever and her handler Lillian, found 76 truffles.
The Truffle Food!
