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Chaser

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Animal

The Resume

    (April 28, 2004-July 23, 2019)
    Born in Pauline, South Carolina
    Border collie
    Owned by psychology professor John W. Pilley
    Had the largest tested memory of any non-human animal
    Could identify and retrieve 1,022 toys by name
    Called ‘the World’s Smartest Dog’

Why she might be annoying:

    She got her name from her early habit of running after cars, which hardly seems all that smart.
    Her toys filled up sixteen plastic tubs.
    Although she may have been brilliant in dog terms, Pilley said that her capabilities were equivalent to a two-year-old human.
    She was a bitch.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She demonstrated that she can remember the names of objects, even years after last seeing them.
    On top of the 1,000+ toy names, she understood an additional 200 words, including verbs, adjectives, and prepositions.
    She was able to learn by inference: if you set out two objects she was familiar with -- say a ball and a frisbee -- and a third, new object --say a Barbie doll -- and told her ‘Fetch Barbie,’ she would bring back the doll, having figured out that the unfamiliar word must go with the unfamiliar object.
    Evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare said, ‘This is very serious science. We’re not talking about stupid pet tricks where people have spent, you know, hours trying to train a dog to do the same thing over and over.’
    Her hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, announced plans to rename a street to ‘Chaser the Border Collie Boulevard.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 15 Votes: 6.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 5 Votes: 20.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 318 Votes: 45.28% Annoying