The Chaser Dog Experiment

The Chaser Dog Experiment involved a border collie named Chaser who was trained to understand over 1,000 words for different objects. Researchers tested her ability to learn and remember the names of new toys by using a process called fast mapping—similar to how children learn language. When given a new word and a new toy, she could quickly associate the word with the object, even after just one or a few exposures. This experiment demonstrated that dogs, especially highly trained ones like Chaser, can understand a large vocabulary and distinguish new words from familiar ones, showcasing advanced object recognition and learning skills.