It’s no secret that dogs are more intelligent than we give them credit for, but one pooch has been standing out above the crowd.
A border collie has been wowing the internet this week after learning the names of ninety different toys while fetching them on request. But there’s another reason why her achievements are so remarkable.
Read on for her adorable story and to watch her in action…
She can also fetch them on command.
Keep scrolling for the adorable video.
The border collie hadn’t been formally trained to learn all the names of her toys, seemingly learning them while playing with her human pals.
Her owners refer to each of these toys by both an adjective and a category name – like the “small Frisbee” or the “colorful ring,” for example.
But now her owners say she has learnt the names of around thirty-one more.
“At first it was hard for me to believe that a dog learned the name of so many toys, but after several days of rigorous testing, I had to change my mind,” explained lead researcher Claudia Fugazza of the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary.
“We noticed that, among her toys, Whisky had several exemplars belonging to one of 4 categories: she had 10 different balls, 7 different rings, 4 different ropes, and 4 different Frisbees,” she added.
Researchers presented her with sets of 4 new toys that she had never seen before – 1 from each of the 4 categories of balls, Frisbees, rings and ropes – finding that Whisky still selected the correct toy on command more often than if it were simply by coincide.
And, following this, to make sure that Whisky wasn’t selecting the toys based on visual cues from her owner, researchers placed them out of sight of her owner.