Article Summary: Chaser, a border collie raised and trained by Wofford professor John Pilley, is the smartest dog in the world. He now knows over 1,000 words including 800 animals, 116 balls, and 26 frisbees that he can identify specifically. With this impressive vocabulary, Chaser has the largest vocabulary of any known animal except humans. She understands common nouns and can pick an unknown toy out of a bin based on familiar objects around it. She also understands verbs adverbs and prepositions. Pilley has now started to incorporate her vocabulary to commands with 3 grammar elements like, "take ball to frisbee." Welcoming Chaser to the family as just a pet, and a means to fill Pilley's excess post-retirement time, Pilley has used "play" as a tool to train Chaser. He explains that understanding the Border-Collie breed was important. He knew that the breed was bred for farmers to herd cattle. If a dog would not follow commands, farmers would not breed them. Therefore, he knew that the breed was bred to follow commands and therefore made Chaser a prime candidate for his study.
Correlation: This article is particularly interesting to me because I own a dog who lives here at Clemson with me. I feel like he is incredibly intelligent, but I never realized he could be capable of this level of knowledge. Also, this study is the first that gives evidence that dogs are the most intelligent animals, other than humans. Other studies relate to dolphins, chimpanzees, ravens, rats, and sometimes even cows. Yet, little research has been done to better understand the brain of a canine. With Dr. Pilley's study being the first of its kind, it has influenced many other scientist to look into the possibilities. For example, Dr. Brian Hare, of Duke University, has created a website called Dognition, which allows you to measure the intelligence of your dog. The article quotes Dr. Hare saying, "Nobody expected that of all the species out there, it would be dogs that have shown the ability to learn labels for objects like we do." This has huge implications for the Theory of Evolution and for the way we study our ancestry.
Personal Reflection: As I wrote earlier, I have a dog who lives with me. Because I read this article, I am going to spend more time each day trying to better understand his brain and capability. Obviously, he is not "Einstein of dogs," like Chaser, but I know he is capable of more than I have taught him. He can sit, shake, and lay down. I cannot wait to see what else he can learn!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/24/smart-dog-border-collie-learns-language-grammar/3691967/
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