Few of us don’t know about Chaser, the amazing Border Collie who learned over a 1,022 words. Impressive as that is, she not only knew nouns, but verbs as well. She mastered the words conceptually, distinguishing the verbs from adjectives, and categorizing objects she’d never seen before. It was, it was said, not unlike how a human toddler learns to speak.

We doubt her road to word mastery was done because of “one upmanship,” but when her owner, the late psychologist, John Pilley, heard of another dog in Germany who’d been taught to tell apart 200 items, he had a hunch Chaser might be capable of doing better. Over the next three years, Pilley coached Chaser, a gift from his wife,  on a daily basis, patiently showing her things like squeaky toys, plush animals, and articles of clothing while repeating their names over and over again.  She came to categorize her toys: balls versus sticks, for example.  As they say, one picture is worth a thousand words (did we just make a pun given the topic?)  and to get an appreciation of how many things she could identify, check out this mountain of “stuff.” She knew each item by name.  Pilley had used 800 cloth animal toys, 116 balls, 26 Frisbees and an assortment of plastic items to ultimately teach Chaser her vast vocabulary.

Chaser learned everything through play, and her joy of repetition was only exceeded by Pilley’s exhaustion of it.

Sadly, Pilley died in 2018, but his wife, Sally, and their daughter, Robin, carried on with the 14-year-old dog. In 2019, however, age caught up with the old girl, and she began to deteriorate. Chaser died in July of 2019, and was laid to rest in the backyard of the family home. Having been separated for too long,  John and Chaser were reunited after a fashion when some of John’s ashes were sprinkled on Chaser’s grave.

In her memory, a bronze statue of Chaser sponsored by the Hub City Animal Project was erected in front of the Children’s Museum of the Upstate on Magnolia Street in 2020. Dr. Pilley’s footprints, also in bronze, were placed beside the statue, and a portion of a street near the museum was renamed Chaser the Border Collie Boulevard. Chaser’s image was also displayed on a series of window wraps that helped with wayfinding on several East Main Street businesses.