The World's Smartest Dog

I came across this story on tumblr, but the original article is from the website Popular Science.
Raised by a former Psychology  professor, John Pilley, Chaser is a medium sized Border Collie, and can understand 1,200 words, understands syntax, and makes inferences.


The breed itself is known to be one of the most intelligent breeds of dog; they are bred to be working dogs (herding farm animals on the Anglo-Scottish border).Pilley takes this working energy and uses it to teach Chaser rather than playing an endless game of fetch. Chaser has the intelligence of a two and a half year old child. Most dogs do commands because of the sounds or tones they hear but do not truly understand the human language. I actually like to test this out on my dog Ruby often using the same tone to call her over but replacing her names with "stupid" or "poopy". Ruby still runs over to me thinking her name is poopy for the moment. Instead of using very basic commands like 'sit' or 'stay' the interviewer uses more complex phrases such as "go to the living room" or "relax". None of these were a challenge to Chaser. Understanding upward 1,200 words makes her know more of the human language than any other primate. Her inference making is tested by placing three objects on the floor, one being her toy named 'fuzzy', another toy named 'bamboozel', and a new balance sneaker that she does not know. She is told to find the sneaker causing her to analyze the objects. Coming to the conclusion that she already knows the two toys fuzzy and bamboozel she correctly chooses the sneaker. Pilley said about Chaser, "I distinctly got the sense that she was thinking not just reacting".  


you can pre-order John Pilley's book on Chaser on amazon: Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words maybe I'll get it from Santa Paws this year.

This is a very interesting dog that makes me think about if we put more effort into teaching dogs like Pilley taught Chaser how different our society could be. Not some doggie revolution but maybe they won't be seen as such a stupid animals. I mean I would be pretty dumb if nobody tried to teach me anything other than sit and stay. Then again Chaser could be one of a kind. Who knows? If find this very thought provoking. I would love my dogs to know more but it is very ruff and I simply don't have the time to become a dog teacher.