World's Smartest Dog Knows More Than 1,000 Words

best dog training videos

A border collie named Chaser provides discovered more than 1,000 phrases -- greater than any otheranimal (Mark Olencki)

Chaser the border collie's mountain regarding toys -- almost all 1,022 of them -- and a groupregarding Wofford University students. (Robin Pilley)

If an individual believed Rover or Sparky was smart, believe again: Chaser just took him for you toschool.

A border collie named Chaser has discovered what they are called regarding 1,022 individual objects-- more than every other animal, even the legendary Alex the parrot. Yet it's most regulated in aday's perform pertaining to these researchers.Â

Psychologists Alliston Reid as well as John Pilley involving Wofford University in Spartanburg, S.C.,wanted to test if there is a restriction for the amount of phrases a border collie could learn, so theytaught Chaser the names associated with countless toys, 1 through one, slowly and also patiently,pertaining to three years.

"We put in the lot of perform upon it," Pilley said inside a conversation using FoxNews.com. whileborder collies are usually a very smart breed, he said, the investigation doesn't allow these toconclusively refer to end up being able to it as smarter than, say, pit bulls as well as dachshunds.

"We can't say anything definitive with regards to this, however there's agreement amongstbreeders," he said, citing decades of breeding regarding herding in which helps to make the dogsspecially attuned for you to learning words. "The hypothesis is that they do have a particularpropensity for you to language, that they listen to the farmer."

Pilley stressed that will the training technique more than something resulted within the incredibleabilities with the dog.

"In the first experiment exactly where we talk concerning the learning involving appropriate nouns,the actual procedure we use is one exactly where your woman was taught in a method she couldn'tfail," Pilley said. "We would location the object proper about the floor, somewhere the dog couldn'tmiss."Â

Then after a period of several months, Pilley along with Reid would work using a distinct object,slowly training your new puppy in each one.

"Most folks once they attempt to teach any dog, these people place too many objects about theground. That's called simultaneous training," Pilley explained. "Our technique was a successivetechnique."

The pair frequently tested Chaser onher vocabulary by putting random setsof 20 toys in yet another room insidethem pertaining to hours her fetchthese simply by name. Chaser, now 6,never got lower than 18 out of 20 right,within 838 (!) separate tests more than3 years.

It takes 16 plastic tubs to keep everyone of the toys.

Watch Pilley give Chaser a amount ofimpressively complex commands --combining three verbs together with 3nouns -- in the video below. The Ladyunderstands the particular verbs"nose," "get" as well as "paw." The Girlprize is actually playtime using "Blue,"a bit ball the lady chases across theroom. for any entire collection of Chaser videos, click here.

She discovered typical nouns that will representedcategories, like "ball," and she learned for you to inferwhat they may be called involving objects by simplytheir association together with additional objects.

Rico your border collie, from the Max Planck Institute inside Leipzig, Germany, has been formerlyleading dog -- he were built along with a vocabulary regarding with regards to 200 words. Chaser'sfeats are chronicled inside the journal Behavioural Processes.

Popular Science contributed to always be able to this report.

dog training videos