The Canberra Truffle Farm's beloved truffle dog Samson has died

Samson was far more than just a pet for owner Jayson Mesman and his family - he completely changed the course of their lives.

They rescued the black labrador after a friend wasn't able to look after him, and Jayson, who is a dog trainer for the AFP, taught him to hunt.

While living in Perth, Jayson gave Samson a go hunting at a truffle farm, and within 10 minutes, he'd dug up four kilograms of truffles. With truffles sometimes fetching upwards of $2000 a kilo, this was no small feat.

From there, Samson worked as a truffle dog on farms across Australia, earning a percentage of the truffles he found, which eventually helped Jayson purchase the truffle farm on Majura Road from original owner Sherry McArdle-English.

Jayson said that they're heartbroken to say goodbye to Samson, who was 11-years-old.

"On reflection, I'm just really proud of everything that he did for us. He obviously got a lot longer life than he was probably going to get considering he was potentially going to be put down. But he has changed our whole life," he said.

"It was always going to be tough, I owe that dog a lot."

Since Jayson announced Samson's passing on the Truffle Farm's Facebook page this week, there has been an outpouring of messages from members of the public.

"Because I'm the person who does all the hunts on the farm, I obviously know all the people that Samson had met. I know how people love the story and I think that's what attracts people to the farm is that ability to go and find something with a dog and relate that to their own dog and how special that is," he said.

"It's been really, really nice to see all the messages and the amount of support we've got from people, it's been pleasing I guess to know he had that infectious feeling on other people."

Samson has now been cremated, and Jayson is in talks to get a bronze statue of his beloved dog made up to house his ashes so Samson can live on at the farm.

Canberra Times