If you never thought you wanted a Border Collie, you were wrong.
I started reading this book in early January after I received it as a Christmas gift and within a few pages, I was hooked. By John W. Pilley, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Wofford College in South Carolina, this quick and warm-hearted read details his experiences with training his Border Collie, Chaser. While Pilley does describe his experimental process, the book is less academic and more a window into the heart of a dog-lover and the relationship he builds with this new family member through the first several years of her life. A very enjoyable read, I especially appreciated his perspective on training and animal behavior. I'd compare it to Pat Parelli's Natural Horsemanship - he states the best way to develop the behavior you want in the animal is to set up the situation so the animal can't help but succeed, simply by doing what comes naturally - using it's natural-born instincts and rewarding the positive.
Pilley provides the backdrop for how he developed his perspective on animal training as he describes his experiences with several generations of dogs before Chaser and how he used them as "teaching assistants" in his animal behavior classes. The book wraps up with probably the most entertaining section as the author describes Chaser's brush with fame after her 1022-word vocabulary goes public in scholarly journals and more broadly through tv and radio.
Pilley spends a good amount of time describing Chaser's learning by exclusion. She clearly can identify and select a toy she knew from previous training. The simple command of "Chaser, find ABC" immediately sends her of to find the plush cube with the letters A, B and C on it. However, when Pilley asks Chaser to find a toy, by name, that she has never heard or seen before, she can identify it from among a pile of toys she does know - on the first try! She seems to look at the pile of toys, think to herself, "Well, I know it's not that one, that one or that one, so he must be asking me to bring that one over there." If you'd asked me if this type of learning was possible, I might have guessed a dolphin or chimp could perform better than chance on this type of task with a little training. But for a dog to demonstrate this behavior, with very little coaxing, and quickly be able to perform this behavior on the first try with new objects on demand, was something I did not expect. It really changes the way I view dogs as pets.
Do yourself a favor and read through this one. If you're a dog-lover like me, you'll seriously start thinking about how you can fit a Border Collie into your life!
I started reading this book in early January after I received it as a Christmas gift and within a few pages, I was hooked. By John W. Pilley, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Wofford College in South Carolina, this quick and warm-hearted read details his experiences with training his Border Collie, Chaser. While Pilley does describe his experimental process, the book is less academic and more a window into the heart of a dog-lover and the relationship he builds with this new family member through the first several years of her life. A very enjoyable read, I especially appreciated his perspective on training and animal behavior. I'd compare it to Pat Parelli's Natural Horsemanship - he states the best way to develop the behavior you want in the animal is to set up the situation so the animal can't help but succeed, simply by doing what comes naturally - using it's natural-born instincts and rewarding the positive.
Pilley provides the backdrop for how he developed his perspective on animal training as he describes his experiences with several generations of dogs before Chaser and how he used them as "teaching assistants" in his animal behavior classes. The book wraps up with probably the most entertaining section as the author describes Chaser's brush with fame after her 1022-word vocabulary goes public in scholarly journals and more broadly through tv and radio.
Pilley spends a good amount of time describing Chaser's learning by exclusion. She clearly can identify and select a toy she knew from previous training. The simple command of "Chaser, find ABC" immediately sends her of to find the plush cube with the letters A, B and C on it. However, when Pilley asks Chaser to find a toy, by name, that she has never heard or seen before, she can identify it from among a pile of toys she does know - on the first try! She seems to look at the pile of toys, think to herself, "Well, I know it's not that one, that one or that one, so he must be asking me to bring that one over there." If you'd asked me if this type of learning was possible, I might have guessed a dolphin or chimp could perform better than chance on this type of task with a little training. But for a dog to demonstrate this behavior, with very little coaxing, and quickly be able to perform this behavior on the first try with new objects on demand, was something I did not expect. It really changes the way I view dogs as pets.
Do yourself a favor and read through this one. If you're a dog-lover like me, you'll seriously start thinking about how you can fit a Border Collie into your life!