Cute puppy trick

I may be a bit biased but I think this is a very cute puppy trick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLzbr_M6_7o

Border Collies can learn over 200 words

Rico. Source:Susanne Baus.

I have always been a believer that my border collie knows certain words. She has a good array of different toys and will fetch the toy that you request. She knows frisbee, stick, ball, hat etc. She knows the difference between the farm animals - tell her "chook" and she will run excitedly to the chooks. Tell her "cow" and she will run the opposite direction to collect the cows. Fascinating to watch.

This has been actually been scientifically demonstrated using a german Border Collie called Rico in a study by Julia Fischer for the Science mag in 2004. She found that this switched on dog had a vocabulary of over 200 words. Rico could be introduced to the toy a couple of times and allowed to play with it and then remember the name of the toy weeks later. He could correctly fetch 37 out of his 40 toys from his collection when it's name was called. Rico showed "fast mapping", reasoning and memory. In other words, Rico could learn words in a fashion akin to the ability of young children to learn words. Rico could also learn a new word by the process of elimination ie fetch a new toy that he had never heard off by placing it with a collection of his familiar toys.

We have always known the border collie is very brainy but this was the first time a study was performed to actually test the breed with human psychology techniques to prove it.

Given that the border collie is a workaholic, and has been proven to be so smart, it is no wonder we are so addicted to our canine mates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rico_(Border_Collie)

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/dogl.html

Border collies are great dogs. They make fantastic companions, good personal body guards, and keep you extremely health and fit as you try to keep up with their neverending energy!