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Chaser was a border collie who was the subject of Professor John W. Pilley, a canine cognition researcher who spent about twelve years studying the dog in order to test her memory.

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Chaser was originally a Christmas gift given to Professor Pilley by his wife Sally, but she eventually became the primary focus of John's research. Chaser is most famous for being able to accurately identify 1,022 toys when prompted (1). To this day, her memory remains the most expansively tested of any non-human subject (2).

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Dog Understands 1022 Words! | Super Smart Animals | BBC Earth

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But how was Professor Pilley able to accomplish this feat? This New York Times article seems to summarize it best: "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." (3)

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Chaser, often described as "the world's smartest dog," made headlines worldwide for being able to identify objects by their names.

Chaser, a Border collie who gained fame for being trained to recognize more than 1,000 nouns, died at the age of 15. Credit... via Pilley Bianchi

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.

Chaser died on Tuesday at 15. She had been living with Dr. Pilley's wife and their daughter Robin in Spartanburg. Dr. Pilley died last year at 89.

Another daughter, Pilley Bianchi, said on Saturday that Chaser had been in declining health in recent weeks. "The vet really determined that she died of natural causes," Ms. Bianchi said. "She went down very quickly."

Ms. Bianchi, who helped her father train Chaser, said the dog had been undergoing acupuncture for arthritis but had no other known illnesses.

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John W. Pilley, a professor emeritus of psychology at Wofford College, taught Chaser over 1,000 words using cloth animal toys, balls and Frisbees. Credit... via Pilley Bianchi

Ms. Bianchi said Chaser was buried in the backyard with the family's other beloved dogs and with some of her father's ashes.

"What we would really like people to understand about Chaser is that she is not unique," Ms. Bianchi said. "It's the way she was taught that is unique. We believed that my father tapped into something that was very simple: He taught Chaser a concept which he believed worked infinitely greater than learning a hundred behaviors."

Ms. Bianchi said that her father's experiment was "uncharted territory" in animal cognition research, pointing to news media coverage calling Chaser "the world's smartest dog."

"Her language learning is very high-level, powerful science," she said.

Chaser understood that words have independent meaning and understood common nouns as well as proper nouns, Ms. Bianchi said.

If Chaser had 30 balls, Ms. Bianchi said, she would be able to understand each one by its proper-noun name and also as a part of a group of objects. "She learned the theory of one to many and many to one, which is learning one object could have many names and many names can apply to one object or one person," she said.

Greg Nelson, a veterinarian at Central Veterinary Associates in Valley Stream, N.Y., said humans were learning that animals have a deeper understanding of the world around them.

"People have always been under the belief that animals respond to commands based on a rewards system," he said. "Learn limited commands and tricks, then get a treat."

But "they do have a language among themselves, spoken and unspoken," he added. "And it's apparent that they can understand the human language probably in much the same way as we learn a foreign language."

Ms. Bianchi said that Hub City Animal Project, an organization dedicated to animal homelessness, sponsored a bronze statue of Chaser that will be placed outside the Children's Museum of the Upstate in Spartanburg next year.

Dr. Pilley's footprints, also in bronze, will be placed beside the statue of Chaser, and a portion of a street near the museum will be renamed Chaser the Border Collie Boulevard, according to Ms. Bianchi.

Dr. Pilley told The New York Times in 2014 that "the big lesson is to recognize that dogs are smarter than we think, and given time, patience and enough enjoyable reinforcement, we can teach them just about anything."

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Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies (Published 2019)

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Chaser, often described as "the world's smartest dog," made headlines worldwide for being able to identify objects by their names. Many owners struggle to teach their dogs to sit, fetch or even bark on command, but John W.

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Dr. Pilley and Chaser both benefited from their interaction. Dr. Pilley was able to utilize errorless learning and positive reinforcement to further his cognitive research with Chaser. This resulted in her being well known as the smartest dog in the world and it allowed him to have a companion that he was able to work with. Chaser was never forced to do anything and positive reinforcement was utilized. This research provided Chaser with mentally stimulating tasks that not only increased her intelligence but contributed to the advancement of animal cognitive learning (4). There were no disadvantages to this relationship.

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This relationship has been very impactful on dog training. Before getting involved in any research with Chaser, Dr. Pilley was apprehensive of the idea of dogs being cognitively intelligent. He decided to start research with Chaser when he was told that dogs are capable of recognizing their given name and they are able to recognize the names of other animals. After working with Chaser and documenting her successes, people would reach out to Dr. Pilley and inform him on their successes with training their dogs (4).

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Chaser the border collie - 6 December 2021

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Join an activity with your class and find or create your own quizzes and flashcards.

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1. “Smartest Dog in the World, Chaser the Dog, Chaser the Border Collie.” Smartest Dog in the World, Chaser, the Dog with the Largest Lanuage Learning in the World, Chaser, Dog with Largest Scientific Lanuage Learning in the World,Chaser the Dog, Chaser the Border Collie, Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.chaserthebc.com/the-research.
2. Wade, N. (2011, January 17).  Sit. Stay. Parse. Good Girl! The New York Times, Retrieved December 7, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html?_r=1&src=dayp.
3. Taylor, D. B. (2019, July 27). Border collie trained to recognize 1,022 nouns dies. The New York Times. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/science/chaser-border-collie-dies.html.
4. Mood, A. (2019, August 5). Chaser the dog: Remember the "smartest dog in the world". American Kennel Club. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/remembering-chaser-the-smartest-dog-in-the-world/.