Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

[Cattledog]

Chaser 2004-2019

By Derrick Bryson Taylor
July 27, 2019

Many owners struggle to teach their dogs to sit, fetch or even bark on command, but John W. Pilley, a professor emeritus of psychology at Wofford College, taught his Border collie to understand more than 1,000 nouns, a feat that earned them both worldwide recognition.

For some time, Dr. Pilley had been conducting his own experiment teaching dogs the names of objects and was inspired by Border collie farmers to rethink his methods.

Dr. Pilley was given a black-and-white Border collie as a gift by his wife Sally.

For three years, Dr. Pilley trained the dog, named Chaser, four to five hours a day: He showed her an object, said its name up to 40 times, then hid it and asked her to find it. He used 800 cloth animal toys, 116 balls, 26 Frisbees and an assortment of plastic items to ultimately teach Chaser 1,022 nouns.

In 2013, Dr. Pilley published his findings that explained that Chaser was taught to understand sentences containing a prepositional object, verb and direct object.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/science/chaser-border-collie-dies.html

[get the red out]

1. RIP smart pretty girl!

What an amazing being!

[luvs2sing]

2. My border collie wasn't that good..

but he knew well over fifty words including names of all his toys, obedience and agility commands, and names of all his doggy friends. And he could pick up a word in context when we weren’t even speaking to him. I drove him crazy once complaining to my husband about an event I was planning and concerns about where everyone would..sit.. 😂

Border collies are truly supreme beings.

[misanthrope]

3. We think our last dog was a Border Collie/Spitz mix

going by behavior and appearance. She was wonderful and very smart. She learned her toys by name, and could pick up directions and commands after only a few experiences. When she learned what the word "outside" meant, she would pick it up in context as you mention. So we started spelling the word, but she learned what that meant, too.

She was the best dog. We loved her dearly and miss her every day. Fourteen years wasn't nearly enough.

[exboyfil]

4. My daughter does agility

First with our two family dogs (an English Shepherd we thought was a big border collie for a long time) and a Sheltie-Aussie mix when she was a kid. Both acquired at the shelter at a year old. She now does agility with her Border Collie (he is insanely smart as well) and her Sheltie (not so smart but a good boy). The two girl dogs seem to be smarter (the Sheltie-Aussie has three titles and is getting close to her fourth and last at 12 years old).

Herding dogs are wonderful animals. The English Shepherd is my constant companion - we have walked 1000s of miles together over the years.

[JonathanDough]

5. The book about Chaser's study & training is excellent!

Dry in some places, but well worth the read for any dog lover.

Chaser as study subject was instrumental in defining the depth & nuances of canine cognition.

The scientific paper that was a result still stands as a landmark in understanding language development.

My main takeaway was; never let myself or my preconceived notions of how smart I think my dog is be the limiting factor in the dog's expression of intelligence. In other words, I treat my dogs as if they're smarter than I think they are and, they usually reward me tenfold with demonstrators of intelligence.

[Duppers]

6. Absolutely!

I inherited an older Lab whose vocab amazes me.

Woof.