- Chaser the dog now able to understand nouns and verbs, researchers say
- In first three years she learned and remembered 1,022 proper nouns
- The objects included 800 cloth animals, 116 balls, and 100 plastic toys
- Research carried out by Wofford College, in North Carolina
Researchers believe they have taught a border collie to respond to words in the same way that a human child does
But Chaser has proved herself as the undoubted top dog after learning to understand 1,000 words - plus a smattering of English grammar.
Researchers believe the nine-year-old has learned to respond to words in the same way that a human child does.
They say Chaser was able to demonstrate understanding of nouns and verbs.
One of the team said: 'Our findings showed that Chaser was successful in demonstrating syntax and semantic understanding on 75 per cent of the trials.'
The study, involving more than seven years of teaching and research on the border collie, was published in the journal Learning and Motivation.
The dog, born in 2004, lived in the home of the researchers, primarily as a member of the family, but also as a subject for research.
In the first three years, she learned and remembered 1,022 proper nouns.
The objects included more than 800 cloth animals, 116 balls, and 100 plastic toys.
There were no duplicates, and each had unique features so it could be identified.
Each was also given a distinctive name, like 'elephant' or 'Santa Claus'.
The dog built up and maintained knowledge of the nouns over a 32-month period.
Each month, she was tested on the entire vocabulary, and each time she was able to identify correctly more than 95 per cent of the objects.
The researchers say Chaser's ability to learn and remember so many words, involving discrimination, memory, and other skills, revealed clear evidence of the potential for learning to understand human language.
The researchers then tried to teach Chaser some grammar and investigated her ability to understand the syntax and semantics of sentences consisting of three elements of grammar - a prepositional object, a verb, and a direct object - such as 'To ball take Frisbee', and the opposite, 'To Frisbee take ball'.
Not only did it require the dog to recognise the 100 toys chosen for the experiment, but she also had to take the right ones to the correct destination.
Findings showed that Chaser was successful in demonstrating syntax and semantic understanding on 18 of the 24 trials, or 75 per cent of the time.
She could also respond to novel objects.
Researchers from Wofford College in North Carolina, in the US, concluded: 'After learning the name of the objects, she was able, as are children, to understand the meaning of the sentences even though the objects had never been used in the syntax sentence.
'The combined findings of the three studies support the conclusion that Chaser did, indeed, process and retain memories of prepositional and direct objects.
'The findings closely match the data obtained in dolphin studies involving sentences consisting of three elements of grammar.'
They said that the experiments revealed that the dog's understanding of words was not simply confined to memorising strings of words by rote.
'Rather, in some way, her brain is partially constructed like that of humans,' the researchers said.
Mr B ,Sparky, Bird and Scoop can also do the same So I am certain that we humans have been underestimating the intelligence of all of the animal kingdom. My honeybees also respond to what I say. So does my horse . They all know more than we have ever given them credit for. hmmm..I'd say it is us that are not so smart.