Nicole — who knows I love stories about animal intelligence — wrote in to share the tale of Chaser, the smartest dog in the world. Or at least the dog with the largest vocabulary.
Here’s the story, as reported by Animal Planet:
As part of a three year training course at Wofford College taught by psychologists Alliston Reid and John Pilley, Chaser was introduced to the names of 1,022 toys. Over the three years, Reid and Pilley taught the collie the names of 1,022 toys by introducing them to her one by one, getting her to fetch the toy and then repeating the name to reinforce the association. They say there’s no limit to what the dog can learn!
They’ve even posted video of Chaser in action:
Pretty amazing stuff, but I’d still like to see them do this with a cat… (Plus, I think it’s hilarious that this man refers to himself as Pop Pop.)
Our cat Tigger runs and hides in the closet whenever anyone comes to the house. She even hides from the lady who feeds him whenever we go on trips. But this weekend when Tiffany and Paul were here, he remained in the room, and even let them both pet him. Could it be that he remembers Tiffany from his kitten days, (he was born at Tiffany’s apartment fourteen years ago)? It’s been five years since he saw Tiffany. I was so proud of him.