This holiday season, I’ve decided to share twelve books with you.
At the bottom of this post, you can enter for a chance to win a copy of this book.
You can also visit this page to find the entire list of books and giveaways.
Today’s book selection is “Chaser: Unlocking the genius of the dog who knows a thousand words.”
This book is a great read for anyone who is interested in animal intelligence. I first read this book several years ago and reviewed it on my blog then. You can find my longer review of the book in this post.
Dr. John Pilley had always been fascinated by the intelligence of dogs. Several years after retiring from his position as professor of psychology at Wofford College, he decided to embark on a multi-year project that would involve studying how dogs learn the names of objects, complex problem-solving skills, and other concepts that are often considered to be uniquely human.
Dr. Pilley’s subject was Chaser, a young border collie puppy. However, Dr. Pilley writes in the book that “I see Chaser as a co-investigator and research assistant rather than as an experimental subject. Just as she’s a part of our family, she’s also the other half of my research team.”
In the book, Dr. Pilley chronicles his adventures teaching Chaser the names of over 1,000 objects, noun categories, basic grammar concepts, and much more. In the beginning, Dr. Pilley spent several hours a day working with Chaser. This work paid off. By the time Chaser was seven and a half months old, she already knew over 200 words. I really enjoyed Dr. John Pilley’s description of how he taught Chaser the names of words, which involved what he called “learning by play.”
Dr. Pilley also describes the research he did to demonstrate that Chaser could learn the names of new objects by exclusion. Learning by exclusion means that the dog is presented with a variety of known objects and one new object. After practicing with several of the known objects, the researcher then says a new name, and the dog picks the new object. The dog is able to figure out in a single trial that the new name must go with the new object.
This was important work because many researchers believed that only humans could learn by exclusion. Some research had been done previously on exclusion with another dog, but researchers had raised some objections to the methods that were used in that study. Dr. Pilley thought he could demonstrated convincingly that Chaser could learn by this method. And, he was successful.
Here’s a video showing Chaser using exclusion to learn new words:
If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. Pilley’s work with Chaser, check out “Chaser: Unlocking the genius of the dog who knows a thousand words” on Amazon.
Enter to win a copy of this book
To enter the giveaway:
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Terms and Conditions
One lucky reader will win a new copy of this book.
Winner will be chosen at random.
This giveaway ends on Friday, Dec. 14, 2018 at 11:59pm Central Standard Time.
Winner will be notified via email on December 15.
If the winner does not respond by Dec 17, he/she will forfeit the prize.
Void where prohibited.
Entering the giveaway form means you agree to the terms listed above.
Take a moment to enter the rest of my holiday giveaways!
I have watched the video and it inspired me to train my Lab to learn toy recognition. So fun and a good challenge,
This is such a great book and a great read. If you haven’t read it, definitely enter the drawing!
so interesting
Sounds sufficiently “neerdy” to me :-). If I do not win it, it gets a spot in my wish list..
Wow this looks really interesting , would love to read it !
I love hearing about Chaser, and learning about learning.
I’d love to read this book as I really enjoyed the book Alex & I, by Irene Pepperberg; Chaser sounds like he is Alex’s canine counterpart.
Looking forward to reading it!
Chaser was a fabulous dog and their relationship was great to watch.
“Novel term must reference novel object” is a pretty advanced inference;
Human children don’t hit this level till about age 4 to 5. ,:—)
The received wisdom USED TO BE that “all domestic species must be stoopider versions of their wild counterparts”, but in fact in crucial ways that are key to dogs living with us commensally, dogs are smarter than wolves.
Dogs read our faces from left to right, just as we read other humans’ faces… the left brain / right face means that the RIGHT side of our faces carries more microexpressive freight than the LEFT side, thus giving more info about our emotional state currently, & more clues to our intentions.
So far, dogs are the only species which is known to do this.
Dogs also follow our gestures & track our eyes –
Untaught, dogs & puppies can follow a finger pointing to a nearby or distant object from an early age, beginning at 6 to 7-WO. Wolves have enormous difficulty learning this, even with intensive training, & they certainly cannot do it spontaneously… while it’s an innate behavior, in domestic dogs.
Something as subtle as a brief sequence of glances (dog’s eyes / specific object / dog’s eyes) can send a dog who is familiar with our routines flying to fetch something, such as our house slippers as we enter the house at the end of the workday, to exchange our street shoes for the comfort of soft-soled slippers.
Human eyes, with their white visible sclerae & colored irises, are designed to be easily tracked for direction of gaze; INTENTION of action is easily inferred from our glances before we act.
This is how our dogs appear to “read our minds”, knowing before we do that we are not leaving the house when we get up from the desk this time, just going to the kitchen for a drink or snack, & they stay parked contentedly, secure in their knowledge that we are not leaving, yet they can also accurately predict that they are going along for a car trip, the very next time we get up, & then they are already at the house door, waiting, when we get there … to claim dibs on shotgun.
:—))
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