Chaser, a border collie from Spartanburg, South Carolina, that was widely referred to as “the world’s smartest dog,” died last week at the age of 15.
Her owner, retired psychiatrist John Pilley, purchased the black-and-white border collie in 2004 and taught her to learn more than 1,000 nouns which helped propel Chaser into a worldwide sensation. Pilley died last year, and Chaser had been living with his wife and daughter in Spartanburg.
The Pilley’s announced Chaser’s death on Facebook in a statement.
“We are beyond sad to report that on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, in the Pilley family home, Chaser got her wings, joining John Pilley for their next adventure,” the family wrote.
According to the family, Chaser’s health had rapidly declined the past few weeks. She is buried in the family’s backyard next to their previous pets and some of Pilley’s ashes.
Pilley trained the border collie four to five hours a day for three years. He would display an item, repeat its name up to 40 times, and then hide the object and tell the dog to find it.
He taught Chaser to understand a grand total of 1,022 nouns using 800 cloth animal toys, 116 balls, and 26 frisbees.
“What we would really like people to understand about Chaser is that she is not unique,” one of Pilley’s daughters said in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s the way she was taught that is unique. We believed that my father tapped into something that was very simple: he taught Chaser a concept which he believed worked infinitely greater than learning a hundred behaviours.”
