When it comes to what makes border collie Largo so special, the fact he can understand French is only part of the equation.
At only nine months old, the pup is already a pro at hunting - which is somewhat of a coup for owners Christophe and Josephine Gregoire, as it usually takes years for a dog to be fully trained at hunting truffles.
But if anyone knows what it takes to train a truffle dog in record time, it's the Gregoire family. Not because they have been training them for generations - Largo is their first truffle dog - but because they are the former owners of the French restaurant Le Tres Bon and are known for their use of truffles.
Mr Gregoire in particular has been using truffles as a chef, for more than 20 years. But his appreciation for the ingredient stretches back further than that. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are truffles in his backyard.
"So before Largo, how did I find them without a dog, you ask?" Mr Gregoire said.
"The natural emissions from the truffle burn a circle around the tree ... so you can already see that something is happening under the ground. But if you pick up the dirt, I can smell it. I can smell the truffle in the dirt and can find 15 kilograms of truffles by myself."
Of course, getting down on your hands and knees to smell the dirt can confuse the neighbours.
"When [my neighbour] eventually found out it was because of the truffles, he came over to the fence and said 'My wife and I were thinking that you were crazy'."
That's where Largo comes in. Traditionally Italian hunting dog, the lagotto, is used to find "black gold", but after doing some research the Gregoire family found that border collies were also meant to be a good breed. And with a litter of puppies available in the nearby town of Braidwood, it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed.
"There were 15 puppies and in my pocket, I prepared a piece of truffle. And out of these 15 dogs, this one - he was quiet; I was happy with that, and his personality was already beautiful and all of the others were very excited," Mr Gregoire said.
"And Largo came up and just sniffed my pocket. I didn't even have to take it out - I never did. He just knew that it was there and he was interested in it."
That's what sets Largo apart, according to Mr and Ms Gregoire. He wants to find the truffle because his owners want him to find the truffle. The fact he was trained in French is simply because it's Mr Gregoire's first language, and Ms Gregoire is fluent in it.
But in the 15 minutes the Gregoires and Largo go out for a hunt during the interview, they find 476 grams of truffle.
"It's about intention," Ms Gregoire said, on Largo's success.
"Some people just want the dog to find the truffle but it's so much bigger than that. When Largo was younger we used to talk to him saying 'You're our truffle dog. You're going to find the truffles' so he knew that was his role. And Christophe invested a lot of time even before the truffle season. The work is done in the summer months, trying to teach him how to find things."
But what do you do with the truffles?
Well firstly, not all of the truffles get harvested each season. The Gregoires leave a certain amount in the ground to rot and create more spores for the following seasons.
"The point was always to leave some," Ms Gregoire said. "It's a fungus so there needs to be spores in the earth for it to grow."
As for the ones that do get harvested, Mr Gregoire is a wealth of knowledge - something which people attending his upcoming cooking demonstration at the Winter Festival, will discover.
The Winter Market is on July 28 at Dairy Road, Fyshwick. For tickets to the demonstration go to southernharvest.org.au.
