I am in the middle of reading the book, "Chaser". It's wonderful and the dog is remarkable. I so admire John Pilley's commitment and his conviction that his dog was capable of doing this. The only thing that puzzles me in looking over the comments here is how in the world anyone could be negative or snide about this video. In a world filled with bad things, this stands out as a simply beautiful, heartening example of what dogs can do--provided that they have humans who love them and are willing to spend the time necessary to train and nurture them to their full potential. Bravo John!

thank you for your comments. We feel so strongly about the necessity to keep Chaser's learning. It's more difficult in test situations where we must control for retrieval based upon visual cues - thereby disrupting personal interaction.

That guy gets up and down off of the floor better than I do and he's 89, while I'm merely 53. It's truly amazing to me how young he seems.

Great video! It might not look like much for some people, but this a classical example of Wittgenstein's speech game: Chaser is actively listening to a sound that is foreign to her and doing a mental process to interpret said sound to a specific meaning that was determined between her and the owner, making her act accordingly, which we do all the time even if we don't realize. For a dog to understand the difference between the actions "nose", "paw", "take" and mix with "lamb", "lips", "ABC" without needing a visual cue to guide her is an astounding insight on how other animals can understand human speech!

What a wonderful, intelligent dog! I love the relationship she and her owner seem to have!

Amazing bond between human and dog. Brilliant dog Chaser

My dog has free will. I tell him "Come here, or stay where you are if you prefer", he DOES IT!

I love the way you reward Chaser with "Blue."

more than that: she can infer and extrapolate from given data. example: they took a whole pile of toys, then added a new one she'd never seen before. the interviewer (this was live tv) had her bring back this one and that one, then told her to bring back "einstein" (the new toy). instantly she froze and looked at him. he repeated. she went to the toys and visibly tallied each one, then jumped on the new one - she knew the name she didn't recognize belonged to the toy she didn't know.

I know Chaser very well, Dr. Pilley is my father and Chaser loves working. You can't visit without her wanting to play and "work". Her body language does suggest that she's burnt out, but it's just her demeanor when she is focusing. Dad always takes his cue from her on how long to work. She has all of us quite well trained. :) Her favorite friend is my 9 year old son and she will wear him out.

Love how she listens to her papa !! Dooctr, you did a great job training this stunning animal.

such an inspiring video showing just how intelligent Chaser is....and how much she likes to play too... i first saw Chaser on the PBS Nova program a couple years back, and was amazed by her ...and i've had a border collie cross girl myself, who lived with us for some 16 years...who was also very intelligent, and not quite so speedy and driven as some of the more pure bred border collies are...she was the most amazing dog i had ever known, until i saw what Chaser could do...

These two are adorable. And chaser is perfect

John is a pioneer in complex animal communication!

While I have not conducted a rigorous scientific experiment to formally prove anything, I am convinced that some dogs are smart enough to pick up some meaning from natural language without deliberate training - they just pick it up over time by watching and hearing us. Some dogs at least, monitor and parse every sound we utter to catch indications of food, rides, baths, company, going, coming, etc. As outlandish as that may sound, I'll bet some dog owners will agree with a casual nod, "Yes, of course they do".I have two senior Australian Shepherds and both have demonstrated the ability to understand speech combinations that were not deliberately taught to them. As an example, both dogs know the names of my sister and her husband and usually react excitedly at the mention of their names, expecting a visit. After a recent phone call, my wife asked, "What did Glen want"? No reaction from either dog. I slowly replied, "Oh, he wanted to borrow a tool. He is coming over in a minutes to pick one up". Instant reaction from my female, barking at the door. What did she hear from that conversation? Probably "Glen ... coming".One time the male came to the sofa and patiently stared at me with his "I want to go outside" look. He seems to expect that I know what he wants, and it usually isn't hard to guess. I said, "Go tell Arthur". I had never tried before but was curious how he might react. The dog immediately trotted into my son's room and barked at him!I'm convinced.

You and Chaser are an amazing team; your ability to train a collie that well and Chaser's ability to respond so well!

Amazing video , and what a bond between Chase and Papa❤️

This is amazing. I know both handler and dog have passed, but what an inspiring video. Thank you for sharing.

i am super impressed by not only this dog, but this man! she is responding without food as a motivator, he is an amazing trainer, and way to go for showcasing the amazing intellect of chaser

What a sweet dog. :) Very cool that you are demonstrating how smart dogs are, and what they can do with care and good training!

Given that I seriously wonder how some people manage to get themselves up and dressed in the morning, I find this dog all the more amazing.

Hi,.. This is Joel Silverman and I host GOOD DOG U on Animal Planet, and this definitely is impressive and real. I train animals for movies and commercials and have chained dozens of behaviors together, but what impresses me most about this that many people are missing is the memory retention. The animal must think and rationalize. By putting the barrier up there and not letting the dog see the objects, the animal's memory retention is totally tested. Very cool!!!

This was great! Beautiful doggie and very interesting experiment. Thank you for uploading it!

Amazing. Awesome trainer and awesome dog!

Great work and experiment! Thanks for doing it and sharing. People should bear in mind that for the dog this is a foreign language. It's interesting in a bunch of ways ... After forty years of doing business overseas, I can tell you almost no American executives working to promote their businesses overseas could have passed this test. Hope John shares some training tips with us, too, because he obviously surmounted the species barrier.

As with Chaser exhibits combinatorial understanding -- that is, once she has learned the meanin of a given verb and noun, she is able to respond correctly when the bear and noun are used in a two word phrase, without additional training.

OMG.. chasser outsmarts me :D great vid, great dog. congratulations on having raised such a wonderful dog.

papa take blue

great job! this guy knows dogs and knows how to get them to take instructions! He rewards him with the blue ball instead of food!!

Thats a pretty awesome dog!! I like her colour and eyes!!

@jbakerm - Agreed - I studied with Pilley, too - in the experimental psych track. Pilley is no hack, but a thoughtful and rigorous researcher. I was amused to read that after Science rejected his first article, he promptly changed his design to control those factors - that's typical Pilley. And that's why things I learned over 30 years are still useful in my current work.

Doctor Pilley, you have a dog there who gets more done than a lot of humans I interact with. :) Please keep us up to date with Chaser's learning, and thanks for uploading this!

I had a border collie. I would whisper commands to him in the basement, and he would go to various rooms throughout the house and retrieve what i had told him to retrieve. The funny thing was the sound of his footsteps, how you could hear him hesitate as he thought of which room to go into, and what to retrieve, and then the fast tapping of feet as he figured it all out, ran to the specified toy, and brought it back to me. It was quite a game. This dog doesn't look like its playing a game.

VERY cool stuff! I hope you will keep posting. Love this cool dog :-)

@ChocoFeru // nope there are other vids of this pooch - the screen (as others mentioned) are to ensure Chaser doesn't get visual cues from him - only audible commands. This clearly demonstrates her ability to reason and respond. Yes Police dogs are very intelligent. There is something else about the Border Collie, however, they are self starters, not mearly command based. As working dogs, they will sometimes herd livestock for miles with NO intervention aside from whistle commands at distance.

so cool!! so much love between owner and dog!

So the reward for following the instructions is the experience, the fun of chasing the blue ball.

That dog knows more words than half of the people watching her.

We, the authors of the Chaser's paper, did not make the claim that Chaser's learning reaches the level of a three year old. In addition, the person who made that claim, is expert.

@ShawnaC123 Yes the visual cues are called the "Clever Hans effect" after the counting horse.

I've got my first BC. This stuff is pretty easy for him. This breed is crazy smart.

Anyone who cannot see how experiments into animal intelligence can benefit all humans, only show the limitations of their own. Dogs in particular, are used as helpers for the disabled, k9 officers, military action, and recovering survivors in disasters. TY for sharing, and keep up the important work. This does show, however, that intelligence is not a prerequisite of making posts not thought out in advance on youtube.

If you think the dog is working for praise you weren't watching. The dog is rewarded everytime with the ball.

Chaser is amazing. She's also a beautiful dog :)

@Luculencia I think you will find they are exceptional with tones and hue's and have a much greater understanding of language than most ppl I know.

I love how the man always calls himself "Pop Pop"...or maybe it's "Papa"..either way, I think it's cute. He obviously loves Chaser.

This is awesome! Very impressive what you have done. Border Collies rule. You are doing a great service for dogs and for psychology. Keep it up doc. And don't forget that there will always be haters on youtube, even if you were healing blind people. So don't listen to them.

the white backdrop is to block visual cues from being perceived by the dog. it's to involve less variables

My dog is smart with names. We found him out in Utah a few years ago when on a road trip. Poor guy was thin so we took him home. After a year or two we got him a ball and that very nice we watched Cast Away with Tom Hanks. And as a joke we called the ball "Wilson" to this day if you ask him. "Where's wilson" He will run around the house and bring you back that same back.

such dedication too! im amazed!

amazing!

How long have you guys worked with the dog? And how old was he when you started/is he now? I have a border collie named turtle lol :D. He is extremely smart and knows how to retrieve the "leash" and the "rope", but thats all. I would be really interested in teaching him more because he loves to learn and do things.

What a smart dog!

amazing !!!!!!!! thank you!!!

@ShawnaC123 Curtain prevent his ques from directing the dog. For example, the dog may not be interpreting the command but looking at facial ques. The curtain prevents that. If the trainer were looking at the object, the dog could interpret the look, not the command.

Awwww so smart dog. :*

Really cool video. Very smart dog! One concern though. Have you been able to determine whether she separates verbs from nouns? How do you know that she doesn't simply (in her mind) know 9 words: takelamb, takeabc's, takelips, pawlamb, etc. For example, did you try teaching her a new toy (without any verbs) and then asking her to take/paw/nose it?

Very good, and clever!

Amazing dog!

@myfreepress i believe they have actually gotten a parrot to do that, If i am not mistaken, they taught an African Grey about chalk, and the color red, and then asked it to locate "red chalk", and even though it had never seen "red chalk" before, it was able to locate it.

@ShawnaC123giving commands from behind the curtain, inhibits visual cues for Chaser's response

remarkable dog and cute old couple :)

Great video! I have two dogs, and some things I would differently is: say the dogs name before every command, because I can't get one dog to do one thing and the other to do something else. (I say "sit", they both sit, I say "Come", they both come, It is difficult to make one sit and the other come) Another thing I'd do is differently is like was done on this video, get simple names for the toys All my dogs's toys are called "Toy". I say "gimme the toy" I may get the ball or the bone!

@midimaster I dunno, what do you call the Daily Show?

I love animals and I believe this is the only experimentation on animals of which I actually approve. This is great for later use to train animals who assist humans. This dog is so intelligent! Ironically, I have been trying to train my cat to meow when I offer her a treat. LOL! It's just to see if she'll do it.

Very impressive but not so practical. I had a German Sheppard trained to go to the refrigerator, open it and bring either a Bud or a Miller. Now that was a smart and practical dog. Took about three weeks to get him trained. Chaser is great too, good job.

Amazing.

They're something else. We have to lock the doors because our border collie will let himself in or out of the house. He also learned to operate the ice paddle on the refrigerator door to get ice and if we're not looking, he'll use his nose to flip the latch up and across to let our maltese/jack russell cross out of his crate. Too smart on the things he wants to be smart about! :)

2020 from Russia with love!

I read your book (i and chaser)is beautiful story☺️☺️☺️

First of all good job on training Chaser. I have a question, if im not mistaken, there is a blue object somewhere on the right side of the room, behind the box, how come when you give the command "papa take blue" Chaser assumes that "blue" is "ball" and not take the other blue object. Does this mean that Chaser associate the word "blue" as the ball??

How will Chaser react if for example at 6:56, you slap ABC in the same manner but instead of simultaneously commading "get ABC" you command "get LIPS"?

totally cute and smart. But I know a few other dogs who are just about as smart! How old is Chase? Nice dog!! Great demo!

@jdaniher1 The screen is to prove that it's a verbal cue and not a visual cue. I don't know why you think this is a scam, either. These people aren't trying to sell anything. They are simply proud of their dog and the training they've accomplished with her. To the owners. Good job! That's amazing.

I am so curious how u manage to teach her all that. obviously she is smart, but she had help. Crazy.. there needs to be more dogs like her. too bad it would be difficult to find another: )

The researcher is behind a screen but that's not enough. He has an awareness of where the items are located so there's a possibility that chaser is picking up on his physical cues, inadvertantly communicated or not.

Wonderful work with your dog. It's really a shame this video is getting such stupid comments of people who don't understand the reason for the white screen... I can suggest one solution for you, though, to be able to prove that your training is real: if you ever record a video with the screen again, position the screen and the toys so that we can see both you behind the screen and the dog interacting with the toys at once. Like this: ..........|S|................toy A ..........|C| YOU..|R|.........toy B................. DOG ..........|E|.toy C ..........|E| ..........|N| ....CAMERA This way you can be seen, in this example, on the left, all 3 toys can be seen by both you and us, since they are aligned diagonally on the right, and the dog can also be seen.

Nice thought to think they might be still doing this in the sky.

He knows more words than I do.

wow! that's one smart dog :)

Monthy Python:))) Sorry,I couldn't resist :)) By the way great dog!!!

Modifier cues, remarkable

Cool!

Chaser wants to play keep away...she says 'catch me if you can.' Dogs = love. For an animal to want to love humans, as bad and mean as we are, is astounding.

Border collies are reported to be the smartest breed of dogs...I have a poodle myself, and she's very responsive and seems to know what my and my Hispanic roommate want...(poodles are supposed to be 2nd smartest)... I Love this vid and the chemistry that I see between dog and handlers, and though I did see a little hesitation from the dog after it picked up some of the items (like it was unsure if it was the right item), I still think this video proves that dogs have more smarts than we know.

Very cool

@Tekwarthewolf That's your response?

@singwee actually, that is the body language of all border collies. They have a tendency to look like they are skulking

This is very interesting. Is it safe to say then that she isn't learning each combo as a single word (meaning she memorizes 9 "words" for this test)? Do I understand correctly that she's able to reapply, for example, "take" with any other toy she knows, without previously hearing that combination?

8:30 lamb keep-away!!! XD

We have also seen the dog to learn just about everything!

Amazing

Great work by trainer...But why call the ball blue, since dogs are color blind? Did the trainer call all the balls no matter what color blue, instead of the word ball?

@booskittyful I agree. Trying to understand intelligence in other species is absolutely amazing work. Cutting edge! It goes to the heart of many key issues. Knowing other minds & mind/body problem ("W Phil a footnote since Plato" BRussell). Scientific rigour important but can limit ( watch?v=mDntbGRPeEU Pidgeons, insight? How long have we been studying pidgeons?) Even aspects of anthropropmorphism may give us clues - a distorted reflection of the long evolution of our own intelligence?

whats the guy doing with his hand in the beginnig??

To those who are commenting negative in this video, well, all I can is that is a sad human nature. People are people after all... And to those who love this video, God bless...❤️❤️❤️

It's great that here reward is the ball "blue"

Chaser! Do taxes. Do taxes. Right now! hehe. What an awesome dog!

Do the same with smells that would be awesome

I love this video. I'm not surprised that dogs are so smart tho. Human beings can be so arrogant. We think we're the only ones with any intelligence.