Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Book Review--Chaser

The book I am reviewing today is entitled, "Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words."  The dog knows 1,022 words to be exact.  This fantastic book written by John W. Pilley tells about the author's efforts to train his border collie named Chaser to learn many words and word categories.  Pilley is a retired Professor of Psychology at Wofford College in South Carolina.  After the death of his good dog named Yasha, it took the professor some time to acquire another canine companion.  He had wanted a border collie for a long time.  Chaser was the pick of the litter.  Pilley started teaching Chaser the basic commands right away, and she had no trouble learning.  Much of the book details the way that Pilley trained Chaser to recognize the unique names of over 1,022 objects.  After his training, Professor Pilley and a colleague at Wofford published a paper about Chaser in a peer-reviewed journal.  People around the world were amazed at Chaser's accomplishments.  Chaser has been profiled in USA Today and she has appeared on the Today show and ABC World News Tonight.  There was an extensive piece about Chaser on Nova on PBS as well.  This is a great book about a man and his dog and science.  I highly recommend Chaser.

Just a note:  There may be bad weather where I live on Friday.  The Weekend Sermon may delayed until Saturday on Sunday.

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