A hobby kennel

The dogs

You can't see a truffle and you can't smell it. They can.

The breed

Why cocker spaniels

The kennel chose the English cocker spaniel for how it works: it stays close, it searches thoroughly, and it doesn’t get dragged off by game.

A truffle dog isn’t born, it’s made. Months of work to learn that one smell under the soil — and to stop, instead of eating it.

Our dogs are the reason we can say we dug this truffle up ourselves.

A cocker spaniel with a freshly dug truffle

The kennel

A hobby kennel, properly kept

We're not a professional kennel and we don't want to become one. These are our dogs, they live with us, and there aren't many of them.

The selection, though, is taken seriously: the lines and the males are chosen, and how a dog is built matters long before how pretty it is.

Portrait of a black English cocker spaniel
A black cocker lying on the training platform
A black cocker sitting, orange collar
A black cocker running
A golden cocker on the training platform
Portrait of a golden cocker
An orange-and-white cocker sitting
Four of our cockers lined up
Sandro with one of the black cockers
Sandro crouching with the golden cocker
Sandro hugging one of the dogs
Two cockers in the woods with the truffles they just found

Trials

What we've won

Our kennel has multiple champion cocker spaniels in truffle trials — both retrieving and free search.

And then there's Leonardo, Sandro's son: Italian champion and regional champion, under 14, with Nerina.

Nerina is the family’s cocker. She is also the name every one of our products carries.

Medals, podiums, rosettes. They are not here to boast: they are the proof that the dogs actually work.

The board of medals and rosettes
A prize-giving, with the first and second place signs
Leonardo Cei with a trophy won at a trial
The stand at a trade fair

Puppies

Litters

Every now and then we have a litter. It isn't scheduled on a calendar — it happens when it makes sense.

Message us and we’ll let you know. But we like to talk first — to understand where a puppy would go and what it would need.

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They were bornEight puppies from Nerina and Ettore · 34 s
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Growing upHealthy and strong · 11 s

Want to watch them work?

The dogs are part of the truffle hunt — and they're the part everyone enjoys most.

A morning truffle hunt

Without them we'd be two people walking around a wood