Step 1. You start with teaching the dog to connect treats with chanterelles by “charging” the chanterelles. To do that you must first go to the woods and find some chanterelles yourself! You can bring your dog on the tour and just find and pick some chanterelles. Charged chanterelles means that you put treats under the chanterelles! Use the same area for training in the beginning. By doing that your dog will soon know what you want when you go to that area. Also use the same items, that is the items that is going to signal to your dog that it is time to work as a search harness and a mushroom basket. Start with your dog sitting beside you. Tell the dog to sit still while you walk a distance of 1 ½ meters, lay out some charged chanterelles and walk back to your dog. Use a command word that suits you or use the word “search”! It doesn’t matter as long as you always use the same word. And this must be practiced many times. But do not repeat too many times during the same practice, it is much better to do the practice on many occasions and with fewer repetitions. In that way your dog will find it more fun and will be more eager to learn. And of course; praise your dog when he/she does what you want! Maybe everything isn’t going to be absolutely right straight away, but praise every little progress. You are both here to enjoy yourselves, right?

When your dog knows what to do, you can increase the distance to about 2 meters. Then you can also change the practise area because you want your dog to understand that chanterelles can grow anywhere and not just on one spot! Increase the distance further but do it gradually. Let your dog do about 3-4 searches and then let him/her rest for 10 minutes or so.

Step 2. During this phase you practice in the same way as in Step 1 but now you move on to “charge” wild growing chanterelles instead in the woods. Return now and then to charged picked chanterelles. The most important thing is to be patient and make sure you and your dog have a great time together.

Step 3. Since your dog can’t be so efficient if the dog is near you all the time you must learn your dog to mark the mushrooms by sitting next to the findings. And you also want the dog to find chanterelles that aren’t charged. You do this by having one treat in your hand and one under the chanterelles. Eventually you only give the dog the treat from your hand and by praising with your voice. Practise this step many, many times.

Step 4. Now you want to motivate your dog to search for trails that don’t have a strong scent from you. You do that by leave your dog sitting and walk away from the dog about 2 metres. Here you lay down the chanterelles and walk back towards your dog in a half circle. Let the dog sit and wait for a while before you give the search command. When this works well you progress by teaching your dog to look for chanterelles that doesn’t have your scent on them. You can use gloves when you pick them or a plastic bag, which you also use when you “plant” the chanterelles in the woods for your dog to search.

Step 5. The last step is to take away your footsteps from the chanterelles. This is important because otherwise the dog will search for your footsteps and not the chanterelles. You do that by throwing the chanterelles for the dog to search.