Dog Understands 1022 Words! | Super Smart Animals

Psychology professor John Pilley was interested in finding out how many words a dog could learn. And seven years ago he found the perfect student, Chaser. Using crate loads of toys, John and his colleagues devised a groundbreaking study of canine intelligence. The toys all have names that Chaser has learned throughout her life And John picks eight at random. John never looks at the toys on the mat, so to pick the right object, Chaser has to actually understand what he's saying. In three years of intensive training, Chaser has learned an astounding 1,022 words. That's 116 balls, 26 frisbees and over 800 cloth animals. But how does she do it? On the mat are five items Chaser knows and one new one she's never seen, a cat that John calls Meow. This task involves highly complex logic. The new word isn't in Chaser's vocabulary, so she has to understand that it might refer to an unfamiliar object. The way to solve the puzzle is by a process of elimination. After only one trial, the new toy and the sound Meow are launched in her brain. And it just goes to show that you can teach an old dog new tricks.