Wonder dog: Chaser knows more than 1000 words

Border Collies are known for being smart and intelligent. But Chaser learned something that few have: he had the most extensive memorised vocabulary of any animal.

One of the world’s smartest dogs was given as a birthday present to his owner, retired psychology professor John W. Pilley, when he was two months old. True, the South Carolina expat didn’t want any more dogs after the loss of his previous pet and colleague, his Border Collie Yasha, left him in extreme pain. However, Chaser’s lively personality awakened a ray of hope in Pilley and inspired the psychologist to begin his research again.

Secrets of Chaser’s wonderful mind

By the time he turned 15, the brilliant border collie was able to distinguish 1,022 toy names. He could understand nouns, verbs, relative and adverbs within a sentence, and recognised new objects by exclusion when their names were mentioned to him for the first time in context with other objects.

Pilley started with a very simple method of instruction: he presented an object and repeated its name during the search exercises until Chaser had learned it. Later, the dog realised that the continuation of sentences beginning with “This is the…” would always be the name of a particular object, so he was often able to memorise the phrase on the first try.

He didn’t memorise robotic sequences of movements, but came to grips with concepts and based his learning process on inferences, like a human child.

Videos of his fantastic performances show Chaser distinguishing between, for example, a small ball, a pink ball, a big black rubber ball and a variety of plush toys, all of which he brings to his owner on command.

Any dog can do this

John W. Pilley claims that it is only through patience, lots of practice, regular play and positive reinforcement that Chaser has reached such a high level of skill.

He never forced her to do anything, and he was not a particularly obedient dog. We did teach him a few important command words for his own safety, but he always learned the language for fun. My father heartily admitted that he learned much more from Chaser than the dog did from him. I shall miss his eternal joie de vivre, which always cheered everyone around him.

– she said with emotion in an interview the late professor’s daughter, Deb Pilley Bianchi.

He and his father have already published a book in 2013 Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words but Bianchi is also putting the finishing touches on another. He and John started writing that one together, but after the psychologist died in 2018 and Chaser in 2019, he continued working on it alone. In the book, he will provide all the information you need to give your pet a vocabulary as rich as that of the most spirited border collie who ever lived.