Sonoma County farm strikes black truffle gold after 9 years of waiting

For the past four years, between the months of December and March, Seth Angerer has walked through his family's orchard in Geyserville, California, hoping for a miracle. With his dogs Leo and Vito in tow, he walks the 8 acres, slowly making his way up and down the rows of hazelnut trees. It can take up to three hours to cover the entire farm.

With their tight curly coats and button noses, Leo and Vito look like big stuffed animals. But they're Lagotto Romagnolos, the only dogs bred specifically to do one thing: Hunt for truffles.

While Angerer walks, the dogs sniff the ground. Sometimes they pull him toward a fence where cats congregate, or toward a rabbit or some stray foliage. Many times the dogs paw the ground as though they've discovered the holy grail, only to have it turn out to be a gopher hole or something equally inconsequential. But on the Monday after Thanksgiving, about an hour before sunset, Leo caught the scent of something in the wind — and it wasn't a gopher.

The dog tugged Angerer about 100 feet, past seven rows of trees. He stopped and eagerly sniffed a patch of dirt surrounded by dried fallen leaves and brush at the base of one of the trees. Instead of aggressively digging into the ground, Leo