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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Chaser The Border Collie-1022 Proper Nouns And Counting!

There's a fascinating article in the Science Section of today's Times about the latest wonder dog, Chaser, a Border Collie living in South Carolina, who has the "largest vocabulary of any known dog." That's 1022 proper nouns and counting, folks. Chaser's owner, an 82 year old psychologist and retired college professor says that she's so full of energy and diligent about her drills and tests that "he has to go to bed to get away from her."

He purchased Chaser form a local breeder in 2004, and promptly began training her four to five hours a day, using a technique he had developed for teaching dogs-his findings are described in the current issue of the journal, Behavioural Processes. Interestingly, the article describes how the process by which Chaser learns words can shed light on how children learn language. It seems that Chaser not only understands proper nouns (in this case, words that represent a specific object, like a toy) she also appears to understand that the verbs that proceed these nouns are seperate words with different meanings.

But her owner has grown tired of just teaching Chaser words-he's moved on to more interesting topics, like grammar. Subject-verb agreement anyone?

We have only one question for Chaser: Can she type?

Enjoy the full article here: www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html?_r=1&hpw

Not that I feel stupid by comparison to Chaser or anything, but here I am still trying to figure out my Kyjen Paw Hide puzzzle...






7 comments:

Asta said...

Oh my dog Bocci
I do feel sowt of stoopid..I don't know how to spell ow do puzzles. I have been known to play pokew and the piano and stuff, but wowds awe not my fowte.
It's gweat to know how smawt some of us doggies awe
smoochie kisses
ASTA

Donna said...

I think she smarter than my hooman wuz in junyer hi. :) Tee hee!

Brad Fallon said...

Nice toy, but that is not a teether! :)

Unknown said...

I think I'd better not to do the comparison, I'm happy with what level I am at right now...
~ Eva

Kristine said...

This Chaser sounds like a total keener. Meh. I prefer dogs who aren't such teacher's pets. :-)

That puzzle looks like fun, though. I think my dog could use a challenge...

Lori @ According to Gus said...

Whoa...1,022 nouns is a lot of nouns! We've had Kyjen puzzles on our wish list for a long time now...just not sure if Gus is patient enough!

Helen said...

That Kyjen Paw Puzzle is one of Spike's favorites! He figured it out right away but he loves it and when he's done, he chews it. You wouldn't recognize what he's done to it. He gets so excited when we take it out.

Thanks for visiting Spike and Dru and we have added you to our reader.

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