Chaser the Dog Shows Off Her Smarts to Neil deGrasse Tyson

there John pili a chipper 82 mock-up I come by her started working with dogs as a psychology professor welcome welcome walk up now he's got one of the smartest dogs around and I've come to check out what she can do good girl chaser is a six-year-old female border collie the breed famously skilled at herding sheep she was born to live in the Scottish mountains chase toe toe toe and herd sheep there be a shepherd John has taught chaser to tend an extremely large herd that was a if there were no real sheep in it chasers herd is made up of toys about a thousand of them and she knows the name of every single one of these aho sailor John has assigned a name to each one never forget Oh cause it's and talk those names to chaser is an elephant apparently sometimes John ran out of stuffed animals Oh toys John claims the chaser remembers the name of every single object in the pile personally I find that hard to believe I don't have time to test chasers memory on a thousand names but I will test her on a random sample John and chaser go into the house so they can't see so I'm gonna get a handful of toys out of this pile and see if chaser can identify them indoors with John and chaser out of the room all right now I lay some of the toys out behind the couch there's lover now it's time to see a chaser really remembers their name already for chaser come on chase come to Neal okay okay come on down chaser find inky well she got one right fine seal and that one too okay hey chaser now you might be wondering what's going on behind the couch Mike is John handing her the toys find crawdad let's check our hidden camera find sugar I asked chaser to find nine toys and she got every single one right and remember I picked the toys randomly from this huge pile neither John nor chaser saw which ones I picked come back on multiple trials with John and others chaser consistently aces her test this a thousand toys here that doesn't like spook you and makes me happy let's see what she does when we challenge her with a new toy she's never seen or heard the name of I smuggled this in to your house it's a Charles Darwin doll okay so I put seven toys behind the couch plus Darwin chasers never seen Darwin hasn't even ever heard the name Darwin so we're gonna see if she picks outdoor and buy influence chaser come on back let's have some more fun first I'm gonna ask chaser to find a couple of toys she already knows find sugar okay put in a bin find core dad [Music] okay put in the tub put in the tail okay here it comes a name she's never heard before find Darwin so while searching for the other toys cheater knew exactly which one to pick up right away but now she seems to have to think about which one might be Darwin [Music] she takes so long I call her back chaser find Darwin's find Darwin [Music] finally she makes a choice I can't believe it chasers never seen that doll before Darwin your good girl yet somehow she made the connection that the name she'd never heard before found Darwin went with the one toy she didn't recognize a good girl the chasers not the only dog to do this that's Darwin and what's more dogs like chaser have shown that they will remember the connection they made between new name and new toy this is yet another way they can learn what's interesting about seeing how dogs are learning these new words is that people thought this was really unique to humans so this was something that was only humans do this but it seems that no that's not the case that dogs can make these inferences about what novel utterances mean and they can remember them for quite a long period now this looks just like what little children are doing [Music]

Channel: NOVA PBS Official

Views: 2,094,386

Rating: 4.9505959 out of 5

Keywords: Border Collie, Dogs, Small & Furry Pets, Cute Animals, Dog Training, Dog, Intelligence, Animals, Memory, Animal Behavior, Behavior, Cognition, Cognitive Studies, Neurobiology, Science, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chaser the Dog, Herding, Science television, Science broadcast, Science news, Science communication, Communication, Dogs and Cats

Id: omaHv5sxiFI

Length: 6min 9sec (369 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MainlandX]

Clearly the dog is just reading the names written on the toy. Simple parlor trick.

[u/pope-killdragon]

I met Dr. Pilley and Chaser a few years ago -- he was my best friend's professor at the time and a bit of a mentor to her (she's actually the one in this video at 3:20) ; Chaser's every bit as smart they say and none of this is exaggerated whatsoever.

Dr. Pilley passed earlier this summer. His family is taking care of Chaser now and continuing his work -- they're currently working on a (second) book about her last I heard.

[u/iatentded]

Meanwhile my dog just figured out how to sit by the door when she wants to go potty, and I was about to throw her a dang party. Way to raise the bar science dog.

[u/Yozki]

Well my chihuahua shits outside our room at 3 am so that we can't be there to tell her not to

[u/coffeegeekdc]

Border Collies are the masterminds of the canine world. When the dogs take over the earth, the ringleader will be a Border Collie

[u/jackle7896]

Looks like Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[u/sleepy-little-owl]

Neil deGrasse Tyson eats a dog on camera

[u/oafsalot]

That dog remember better than I do. Really I have a terrible, memory.

[u/B_bbi]

The high amount of licensed toys proves this mans affection for the dog. He could have bought no-name toys, but sprung for Spongebob and Mario because he loves his dog