The American Kennel Club keeps a long, important list. The list shows 187 recognized breeds of dogs. This year, a big name showed up on the list for the first time: the Lagotto Romagnolo (Lah-GOH-toh Ro-man-YO-loh).

That big name belongs to a little dog. The dog comes from Italy. The American Kennel Club is just recognizing it. But the breed has been around for centuries. In fact, the Lagotto Romagnolo is the grandfather to the poodle and the golden retriever! Like those dogs, the Lagotto is a “water dog.” Hunters train water dogs to fetch birds from bodies of water. Lagotto dogs love to swim. They like helping hunters find birds. But they also enjoy something else—digging holes.

Guess what happens if leave your Lagotto in the backyard unsupervised. He or she will dig a deep hole—in seconds. That’s not so great for your newly planted pansies! But people in Italy found a great purpose for the pup’s powerful paws. Remember those fancy underground mushrooms called truffles? The curly-furred pooches are pros at digging them up!

Any dog can be trained to find truffles. Most dogs can dig for them. But Lagottos are bred for those purposes. From a young age, truffle hunters teach Lagottos what truffles smell like. They pour truffle oil onto potatoes. The dogs sniff them. Then the dogs start roaming through the woods. They hold their fuzzy noses to the ground. Soon they find and dig up truffles. The best part is, they don’t even want to eat them!