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Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

nytimes.com

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Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#41

Post by technothrasher »

"Chaser was taught to understand sentences containing a prepositional object, verb and direct object."

I would have never believed this if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. A friend has a golden retriever that I was playing with one day, and I asked him to get me a stick. He did, but it wasn't the stick I was thinking of, so I just off hand said, "no, not that stick, the one by the rock." and damn if that dog didn't drop it and go get the one by the rock. So I said, "put that stick with the other stick." Bam, done. I was stunned. I told my friend and he said, "oh, yeah, not surprised. He's smart." Now, maybe he didn't fully understand the sentences, and was simply understanding my body language and watching my eyes, movements, etc for clues, but even if so... dang.

Now, my dimwitted sweetheart of a pup often gets confused just between "sit" and "down", but I love her anyway :)

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#42

Post by viraptor »

manigandham wrote: post #36

Sad to hear. I have a border collie and it’s amazing how much he trained himself. What’s especially interesting is selective obedience (also common in trained dogs like service animals). He almost always knows what you’re saying, but only listens when he wants too.

Also it's sometimes annoying how much more they understand than you want them to. "Bring the ball to get a treat" turned very quickly into "if you don't have a treat in hand, I'm not going to bring you anything (just walk away a bit, sit on the exact thing you asked for and stare at you)"

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#43

Post by dymk »

manigandham wrote: post #36

Sad to hear. I have a border collie and it’s amazing how much he trained himself. What’s especially interesting is selective obedience (also common in trained dogs like service animals). He almost always knows what you’re saying, but only listens when he wants too.

Selective disobedience in service animals is different than what you’re describing. That’s when a dog chooses to ignore commands it knows are dangerous - not just when it feels like it.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#46

Post by manigandham »

dymk wrote: post #43
manigandham wrote: post #36

Sad to hear. I have a border collie and it’s amazing how much he trained himself. What’s especially interesting is selective obedience (also common in trained dogs like service animals). He almost always knows what you’re saying, but only listens when he wants too.

Selective disobedience in service animals is different than what you’re describing. That’s when a dog chooses to ignore commands it knows are dangerous - not just when it feels like it.

You're right, I'm talking about the general concept of the dog making the decision to follow or not. For example, my dog will ignore me completely if he knows it's going to lead to a bath.

He clearly has determined what the outcome will be and decided not to do it, which is really interesting to watch, and very surprising the first time it happened.

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#47

Post by colechristensen »

RaceWon wrote: post #21

I'll try not come off as snide but I have to wonder what types of ailments Border Collies are prone to due to the inevitable inbreeding that every AKC dog has--hey they gotta look pretty in the ring. * Our German Short Hair Pointer had seizures which in time led to him having to be put down; despite having him treated at the Animal Medical Center in NYC amongst other places. * Our English Cocker Spaniel (a found dog…

There is the International Sheep Dog Society which registers dogs filtering out some genetic conditions and allows new registrations by passing a sheep herding trial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sheep_Dog_Societ...

Re: Border Collie Trained to Recognize 1,022 Nouns Dies

#50

Post by mirceal »

rurp wrote: post #40
mirceal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha. my dog is trained to only sit and wait, but I’ve got this nagging feeling he understands almost anything I tell him and just chooses to ignore me most of the time.

I think most cats are the same way. I trained my Siamese cat to do some classic dog tricks like sit, shake, roll over, etc, and he picked them up without much trouble. That said, he's got to be in the mood to listen or it's like I'm not even talking.

hah. my dog will perform the said tricks if food is involved. if no food... it's anyone's guess what's going to happen.
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