FOX Carolina 21Dog with world's largest vocabulary inspires research

Most of us are pretty happy if our dog is able to sit, stay or roll over. But their potential for learning is much greater than that.

In fact, the dog with the largest vocabulary in the world is a Border Collie in Spartanburg named Chaser. Her human is Dr. John Pilley, who retired from Wofford College in 1994 where he was a psychology professor. Dr. Pilley certainly hasn't retired from teaching.

FOX Carolina's cameras came along when Pilley brought Chaser to Clifdale Elementary for a demonstration.

SLIDESHOW: Chaser shows off her vocabulary skills

He begins by telling the fifth graders, "We're investigating, as scientists, what Chaser can learn about words."

Dr. Pilley adopted Chaser as a puppy and spent four or five hours each day teaching her the names of toys until she could recall more than 1,000. She's even able to distinguish some of the items by categories.

With an array of balls on the ground Dr. Pilley urges Chaser, "Look for soft!" which is promptly followed by a, "Good girl!" when she places it into a plastic tub. The toy she knows as "soft" is followed by a water ball called "water," and a Boston Celtics ball called "Boston" and the kids are delighted by the dog's talent.

Dr. Pilley says, when he realized Chaser's potential, he started to incorporate new, more challenging commands in front of those toy names and he demonstrates that for the kids as well.

"Nose carrot!" he calls and Chaser promptly pushes her carrot toy with her nose.

"Paw carrot!" encourages Pilley and Chaser bats the toy effortlessly.

Finally "take carrot" is commanded and she happily squeaks the toy in her mouth.

At 8-human-years-old, Chaser is still enthusiastically learning new tricks and she'll even imitate her master. At one point Dr. Pilley lays on the ground, rolls over and tells Chaser, "Do it right now! Do it, girl." The class is all smiles as the Border Collie imitates her owner's actions.

This day's presentation reveals several more impressive tricks that have the kids thinking about ways to engage their own dogs in learning exercises.

Student Jacob Wright says, "Chaser knows over a thousand words. That's really amazing. The only words my dog knows is sit, lay and roll over!"

"I think we're just on the frontier in terms of discovering what dogs can do," says Dr. Pilley. "Dogs have earned our respect and that's the message we would like to get across. You have an amazing animal in your home when you have a dog."

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