Dog Translation Guide

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Dog Translation Guide" on Twenty Thousand Hertz

Introduction to Dog Communication Timestamp: [00:59] – [01:02]

In the "Dog Translation Guide" episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz, host Dallas Taylor delves into the intricate world of canine communication. Highlighting that nearly a third of households worldwide are home to a dog, Taylor emphasizes the profound bond between humans and their canine companions, noting that dogs not only protect and keep us active but also offer unconditional love.

Understanding Canine Perception Timestamp: [01:10] – [01:16]

Leila Battison, the episode’s producer, introduces Dr. Daniel Mills, an expert in animal behavior. Dr. Mills explains, “Dogs are going to see us through a dog's eye view of the world, and that's very different to a human one” ([01:10]). This perspective is crucial for effective communication with our pets.

Evolution of Dog Vocalizations Timestamp: [01:32] – [04:07]

Dr. Mills elaborates on the evolutionary roots of dog vocalizations, connecting modern dog behavior to their wild wolf ancestors. He states, “Vocalizations which you commonly find in the wild ancestors like whining and howling are clearly social solicitation” ([01:53]). These sounds have been retained and adapted through selective breeding. Notably, while wild wolves seldom bark, domesticated dogs have developed barking as a key form of communication, primarily because humans found it useful for alerting to danger. Dr. Mills observes, “The bark is an alert or I'm here type vocalization” ([03:54]).

Size and Hearing: The Canine Sensory Connection Timestamp: [04:38] – [05:22]

A fascinating aspect discussed is the relationship between a dog’s size and its hearing capabilities. Contrary to the general hearing range cited for dogs (40Hz to 60,000Hz), Dr. Mills reveals, “Within dogs, size and hearing goes together. Small dogs can hear higher frequencies than big dogs can” ([04:55]). This trait likely evolved to assist smaller breeds in tasks like rat catching, where detecting high-frequency sounds is advantageous.

Decoding Barks and Frustrations Timestamp: [05:35] – [10:00]

Barking often signifies frustration, which Dr. Mills defines as, “frustration means you've lost control over the environment” ([05:49]). Modern dogs experience minor frustrations such as being confined indoors, leading to increased barking. Different types of barks convey varied emotions:

• Deep Barks: Indicate reactions to potential threats or other dogs.
• High-Pitched Barks: Suggest distress from separation or loneliness.

Dr. Mills emphasizes the importance of interpreting these sounds accurately, stating, “If it's like a deep bark, then it might suggest that the dog is reacting to something like another dog or potential threat” ([06:20]).

Body Language and Communication Timestamp: [09:09] – [11:04]

Effective dog communication transcends vocalizations, incorporating body language cues such as tail position, ear movements, and overall posture. For instance:

• Tail Tucking: “Putting the tail over the anal glands, which produce a certain scent” to reduce antagonism ([10:00]).
• Tail Wagging: Indicates varying emotions based on speed and context, such as playful or threatening attitudes.

Dr. Mills notes, “You really need to understand the much wider context” ([10:43]), underscoring that individual behaviors must be assessed holistically.

Misunderstandings Between Dogs and Humans Timestamp: [12:22] – [17:51]

The episode addresses common misunderstandings, especially between children and dogs. For example, children may misinterpret a dog’s playful growl as aggression, leading to accidental play bites. Dr. Mills explains, “A lot of the bites to children on the face in particular, are these play bites” ([13:02]). Such miscommunications highlight the necessity for humans to better understand canine signals to foster harmonious relationships.

The Story of Chaser: The Canine Linguist Timestamp: [21:32] – [37:05]

One of the episode's highlights is the remarkable story of Chaser, a border collie trained by Dr. John Pilly and his daughter Pilly Bianchi. Chaser achieved unprecedented linguistic capabilities, understanding over 1,000 nouns and demonstrating a conceptual grasp of language that surpassed previous records.

• Early Training: Starting at just a few weeks old, Chaser underwent intensive training using errorless learning techniques. Dr. Mills comments, “Chaser was taught stuff in the context of play” ([29:25]), making learning a fun and reinforcing experience.

• Language Mastery: By her fifth month, Chaser exhibited a profound understanding of object names and verbs. Pilly Bianchi recounts, “Chaser would look through her toys and deduce that it must be the one that she didn't recognize” ([33:41]). This ability showcased not just rote memorization but a deeper comprehension of language structure.

• Scientific Recognition: Dr. Pilly published two scientific papers on Chaser’s abilities, earning her the title of “the scientifically most important dog in the last 100 years” ([21:56]). Chaser’s interactions with media figures like Anderson Cooper and Neil deGrasse Tyson further cemented her legacy as a canine linguistic pioneer.

Chaser's Legacy and the Chaser Initiative Timestamp: [37:32] – [42:34]

Following Dr. Pilly’s passing, Chaser’s decline was swift, ultimately leading to her peaceful passing at home. In her memory, Pilly Bianchi established the Chaser Initiative, which focuses on:

• Educational Programs: Teaching children about empathy and learning through play with dogs.
• Canine Welfare Research: Promoting thoughtful and meaningful interactions between humans and dogs to enhance welfare.

Pilly Bianchi reflects, “Communication is very important in all species, and if you can crack that code working with your dog, this greatly enlarges their world” ([41:03]).

Insights from Dr. Daniel Mills Timestamp: [41:22] – [41:46]

Dr. Mills summarizes the importance of communication, stating, “Any relationship, if it's going to be successful, depends on good communication” ([41:22]). He urges dog owners to invest effort in understanding their pets to prevent misunderstandings and foster peaceful, fulfilling relationships.

Concluding Thoughts on Human-Dog Communication Timestamp: [41:46] – [42:34]

The episode wraps up by emphasizing that effective communication with dogs not only enhances the human-animal bond but also contributes to better human behavior and empathy. Pilly Bianchi asserts, “Dogs teach us so much and if we just pay attention, we're going to be better humans because of it” ([41:46]).

Dallas Taylor concludes by acknowledging the collaborative efforts of the production team and promoting related resources, including Pilly Bianchi’s book, For the Love of Dog, and the Chaser Initiative’s educational programs.

Notable Quotes:

• “Dogs are going to see us through a dog's eye view of the world, and that's very different to a human one.” – Dr. Daniel Mills ([01:10])
• “The bark is an alert or I'm here type vocalization.” – Dr. Daniel Mills ([03:54])
• “Any relationship, if it's going to be successful, depends on good communication.” – Dr. Daniel Mills ([41:22])

Conclusion

"Dog Translation Guide" offers a comprehensive exploration of canine communication, blending scientific insights with the inspiring story of Chaser. By understanding dogs' unique perspectives and communication methods, humans can strengthen their bonds with these loyal companions, paving the way for a more empathetic and harmonious coexistence.

Transcript

[Dallas Taylor]

Multiple studies have found that owning a pet can help you live a longer and healthier life. But pet or no pet, nothing beats regular checkups. And that's where Zocdoc comes in. Zocdoc is a free app and website where you can find and book high quality in network doctors instantly. With over 100,000 providers across every specialty, you can get appointments within 24 to 72 hours or even the same day. Visit Zocdoc.com 20K to book your top rated doctor today. That's Zocdoc.com you're listening to 20,000 Hz. I'm Dallas Taylor. Dogs are truly man's best friend around the world. Almost a third of all households are home to a pet dog, which adds up to more than 470 million canine companions. They protect our families, keep us active, and show us their love as soon as we walk in the door.

[Leila Battison]

Now, we all know that dogs are smart, sensitive creatures.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's 20,000 hertz. Producer Leila Battison.

[Leila Battison]

But to communicate with dogs effectively, we have to understand how they're wired to think.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Dogs are going to see us through a dog's eye view of the world, and that's very different to a human one.

[Leila Battison]

That's Dr. Daniel Mills, who's an expert in animal behavior.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Dogs are incredibly observant and very good at predicting what will work and what will get them what they need. So I think the starting point has to be to appreciate the fact that dogs want to fit in as in.

[Leila Battison]

They want to fit in with the people in their lives. And those social tendencies go way back to their wild wolf ancestors. Wolves live and hunt in packs of about six or seven, roaming together over hundreds of square miles of territory. And when you rely on your pack for your next meal, it's essential that you communicate well with them.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Vocalizations which you commonly find in the wild ancestors like whining and howling are clearly social solicitation. And they've retained that function. So if a dog howls, it basically says, I want you to come to me. It's what wolves do before they go off hunting. You know, they howl and they gather together as a pack and then they go off.

[Leila Battison]

On the other hand, whining tells the rest of the pack that someone needs help.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Yeah, whining and whimpering are sort of care solicitation behaviors.

[Leila Battison]

When humans and wolves first started hunting together tens of thousands of years ago, wolves learned that these whines were good at getting our attention.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

The frequencies that they use, we find endearing and encourage us to care.

[Leila Battison]

Like when a young baby whimpers and cries, a parent can't help but comfort it.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Certain sounds may intuitively encourage a more nurturing aspect to us. So they've piggybacked onto our own care of our own young, if you like.

[Leila Battison]

Over time, the wolves that whined to us got our care and passed that behavior on to their pups. And today, in dogs of every breed, that tendency remains.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

That's the way that evolution works. There's a niche there. What works.

[Leila Battison]

Of course, the sound that we most associate with dogs is the classic bark. But it turns out barking is not a very wolfy thing to do.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

You will see it occasionally in certain sort of conflict situations that they may issue a bark. But the wild ancestors of dogs, we don't think, do much barking, and we think actually the bark is a behavior that humans may have selected for.

[Leila Battison]

Selective breeding has radically changed the characteristics of many of our domesticated species, from dogs to cows and even wheat and corn. And if you go back to those early days of hunter gatherers and their dogs, it makes sense that humans would have favored the barkier ones.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

And if you think about it from an evolutionary point of view, one of the early functions of dogs was to alert them, keep humans safe. And the bark is an alert or I'm here type vocalization. But then we actually found that quite a useful thing.

[Leila Battison]

So we favored the dogs that did a better job of alerting us to danger. And the bark became the sonic signature of dogs around the world. Barking is far from the only thing that humans have bred into dogs over the millennia. We've selected for all kinds of physical and personality traits. In time, we've transformed the wolf into everything from the tiny Chihuahua to the shaggy Tibetan mastiff. And of course, different sized dogs make different sounds.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

If you're a small animal, you can't make deep sounds because you need a deep chest to do it.

[Leila Battison]

But it turns out selecting for size has also meant selecting for hearing. If you look up the hearing range of a dog, you'll get a standard figure of 40Hz to 60,000Hz.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

But according to Daniel, that's an oversimplification. The original work that was done was done on four dogs. And a number of years ago, one of my colleagues and myself decided that we'd bring dogs in and start playing them different frequencies and see at what point they couldn't hear the sounds. And what we found was that within dogs, size and hearing goes together.

[Leila Battison]

In other words, small dogs can hear higher frequencies than big dogs can.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

So Something like your Jack Russell will be able to hear mice scurrying around in your skirting boards, whereas your Great Dane can't.

[Leila Battison]

This may be yet another trait that we've selected for in rat catching dogs.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

You look at the dogs that are ratters. They tend to be smaller dogs.

[Leila Battison]

As any dog owner can tell you, dogs bark for a wide range of reasons. And for Daniel, the common thread is frustration.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Frustration means you've lost control over the environment. Your predictions are no longer being met. If you think about it, alerting barks, you know, there's someone coming and I'm not sure what I should do about it. So that's sort of a slightly frustrating situation.

[Leila Battison]

And a modern dog's life is filled with minor frustrations like simply being stuck in the house.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

We keep dogs confined a lot, so that would encourage barking over the other vocalizations.

[Leila Battison]

But if a dog barks when it's home alone, there are some audible cues that can help explain why.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

If it's like a deep bark, then it might suggest that the dog is reacting to something like another dog or potential threat. However, if it's a much more high pitched bark, it might suggest that the animal is distressed by being left alone. And the separation from the owner is a big problem for the dog.

[Leila Battison]

After all the time humans have spent with dogs, we've gotten pretty good at recognizing the emotion behind the sounds they make.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

If you play people different types of bark, then you give them a list of circumstances in which those barks and growls might have happened. Generally, people are pretty good at matching them, even if they're not dog people.

[Leila Battison]

To demonstrate, here are three recordings of dog growls. One was recorded while the dog was playing. One was in the presence of a threatening stranger, and one was while the dog was guarding a bone. See if you can guess which one's which. Here's Growl A. Here's Growl B. And here's Growl C. Now here are the answers. Growl A was guarding a bone. Growl B was the play. Growl A. Growl C was with a threatening stranger. But guessing the context of a sound is different from understanding its exact meaning. And sometimes when our dogs bark, it can be hard to tell precisely what they want. In recent years, scientists have been using AI to help understand what our dogs are saying to us. And maybe someday we can develop a kind of dog translator, like in the Pixar movie Up.

[Dallas Taylor]

My master made me this collar. He is a good and smart master, and he made me this collar so that I may talk squirrel.

[Leila Battison]

In reality, it would probably be more like this Bark means I'm hungry. This bark means I have to go potty, and this bark means I heard a noise. That is, if those distinctions really do exist.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

I think the technology is now there for AI. If we could harvest massive amounts of vocalization data and the context in which they were gathered, then I think we can detect certain patterns and may then be able to decode bargs like that.

[Pilly Bianchi]

I am hungry.

[Leila Battison]

Of course, dogs use much more than just sound to communicate their feelings.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Could be things like facial expression, where the tail is.

[Leila Battison]

There's the position of the ears, the stance or posture they're taking, bristling fur, and the list goes on. And just like with people, you can also glean a lot about their emotions from how they're behaving.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

So when you're frustrated, you become very narrow in your focus and very sharp in your actions. If you're scared, it's a quick response, and we can see communication of fear.

[Leila Battison]

To decode how a dog is feeling, you need to consider all of these factors.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

You can't just use individual behaviors. You have to assess the whole animal. People say, oh, he had a waggy tail, but he bit me. Yeah, well, dogs wag their tails for lots of reasons. You have to understand the context in which that wag has occurred.

[Leila Battison]

For dogs, the movement of their tails probably has to do with scent. For example, when a dog is scared, they often tuck their tail between their legs.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

What we think is happening when a dog clamps his tail is he's putting the tail over the anal glands, which produce a certain scent. So by clamping his tail, he reduces the chemical signal and so reduces the risk of antagonizing anyone. Whereas if you raise your tail, you're exposing your anal glands. And if you wag your tail, you potentially create a bigger chemical cloud around you that signals much more about you. So the wagging tail is. If it's up high, think about context in which an animal really wants to signal who I am, which could be in a play context. It could be in a threat context.

[Leila Battison]

Though, on top of that, the speed of the wagging tail can communicate different things.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

It can be a very slow, deliberate wag, because I don't want to make it really fast because that could just provoke you and we could get involved in a fight that we don't really want. So it's quite dangerous, I think, to say this is what this gesture means. You really need to understand the much wider context.

[Leila Battison]

One area where it's really important to understand that wider context is with play.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Play Is an interesting one, because play can take any sort of behavioral element and mix it up with other ones so that it doesn't really make sense. So certainly we will see all sorts of vocalizations. Barking, growling, even whining in the context of play.

[Leila Battison]

But a dog's body language will usually tell you when it's growling for fun and when it's serious.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

If a dog puts his chest down and his bum in the air, what we call a play bow and then growls, what it means is, I'm not actually threatening you.

[Leila Battison]

And there's one particular sound that you might hear when a dog's playing, known as the play laugh.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

It's a very breathy vocalization. You know, it sounds a little bit like a pant, but it's a sort of.

[Leila Battison]

Dogs use this play laugh both with people and with each other. And for them, it seems to be an audible signal that everything is good.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Not only does it elicit play, but also, if you played it in the background of dogs that were in shelters, they seem to be more relaxed.

[Leila Battison]

Unfortunately, this signal can also lead to a serious misunderstanding between people and dogs.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

When a lot of children see a dog, they're really quite exciting. They often go, and if you blow on a dog, and I don't recommend anybody does this, because you could well get bitten by your dog, often your dog will bounce up at your face. They're responding to this vocalization that resembles the dog play laugh.

[Leila Battison]

And that response can take the form of a play bite, which dogs do to each other all the time.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Now, the interesting thing is, when a dog does a play bite, it uses its incisors, the front teeth, not the pointy teeth, not the canines. So it doesn't give a puncture wound. It often gives an arc of tooth marks.

[Leila Battison]

And these are the patterns of bites that Daniel often sees on children's faces.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

I think a number of the bites to children on the face in particular, are these play bites. But the dog doesn't realize that the child hasn't got a hairy coat. And so when they put their teeth on it, they leave a mark, Unlike when they do it to another dog.

[Leila Battison]

While misunderstandings are bound to happen, most of the time, dogs are doing their best to figure out what their human is thinking or feeling.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Dogs live in a very emotional world. You know, we worry about paying the mortgage next month and that sort of thing. Dogs don't project themselves in time. They'll be more worried about, well, where's that bit of food gone that was in my bowl a minute ago? An Abstract thought is quite hard for them, if not impossible in many respects, but they are very, very in tune with emotion.

[Leila Battison]

As humans, we communicate our emotions through the way that we speak. Unfortunately, that's something that dogs are great at grasping.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

They're very sensitive to tone of voice. And we know that across species, certain tones can convey certain meanings. So across the world, if you want to speed an animal up, you tend to use ascending tones.

[Dallas Taylor]

Yip, yip, yip.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

And if you want to slow an animal down, you use descending low tones. So.

[Dallas Taylor]

Whoo.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Likewise, if we get excited, then the dog will get excited, because the change of the voice. See how my voice has just changed? You know, it's going higher pitched. It's going faster. Biologically, we tune into these things, and dogs are very tuned in on an emotional level.

[Leila Battison]

While dogs are great at picking up on our tone of voice, there are some situations where the tone we choose can lead them astray.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

A lot of people, if their dog gets scared by firework, they'll try and console the dog, and they'll crouch down and they'll cuddle it and say, oh, everything's all right now. From a human point of view, what they're trying to do is reassure the dog. But from the dog's point of view, what they see is the bang goes off, and their human suddenly makes himself into a small ball. The pitch of their voice changes, and they cuddle up close to the dog, which actually means my human is scared as well. So far from it being reassuring, it feeds into the problem.

[Leila Battison]

So the next time your dog gets afraid of a loud noise, consider strutting around and acting confident and happy.

[Dallas Taylor]

All right. It's a firework. I love firework. Fireworks are the best.

[Leila Battison]

To properly interpret the sounds our dogs make and the behavior they display, we have to understand how they see the world. And once we do that, our dogs will understand us better, too. But one remarkable dog has learned to understand human communication unlike any in recorded history.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Chaser has been called the scientifically most important, important dog in the last 100 years, and that is because of the way that she learned language.

[Leila Battison]

That's coming up after the break.

[Dallas Taylor]

It's hard to overstate just how much I love my Sonos speakers. And they have speakers for just about every situation you can think of. So no matter who you're shopping for this holiday season, these devices make excellent gifts. Personally, I have almost 20 Sonos devices throughout my house. For instance, I have my record player hooked up to the Sonos port. This wirelessly sends the audio signal to any Sonos speaker. For me, that's mainly my Sonos Move 2, which is super portable. That way I can listen to vinyl records in my studio, out on the porch or playing in the backyard with my kids. I also have several Sonos speakers linked together for my home theater setup. I like to turn on both night sound and speech enhancement features so I can still hear the dialogue without waking up the kids. Sonos is a huge part of my daily routine. For me, every product they make has been easy to set up and they all sound fantastic. Sonos has great gifts for everyone on your list. Visit sonos.comhertz to wrap up your holiday shopping. That's sonos.comhertz and just as a reminder, be sure to use our unique URL so they know that you came from us sonos.comhertz hey listeners, you might have noticed that we did a special double feature today and released two episodes at the exact same time. One about cats and one about dogs. I'm curious if we have more cat people or dog people in our audience, and to find out, I'm going to see which one gets the most shares. So take a moment to think about the people in your life who love cats or dogs and share the episode with them. All you have to do is tap that share button in your podcast player and send it to a friend or family member. If they listen to it, it'll count. I'll announce the winner in two weeks. Now onto the Mystery Sound. Congratulations to Jessica Loyce for getting last episode's mystery sound right.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Am I repeating myself? Would you stand me on my head?

[Dallas Taylor]

That's the voice of Real Talkin Bubba, a wise cracking teddy bear that was released by Mattel in the mid-90s. Bubba also said things like go on.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Wiggle my head and fluff up my hair.

[Dallas Taylor]

Bubba was voiced by character actor Gary Grubbs, who's appeared in everything from Dukes of Hazzard to Django Unchained to Glee. Here's Gary playing a sheriff on the X Files.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Well, we didn't find any evidence of criminal activity, and since nobody turned up, we just went ahead and filed a missing persons report.

[Dallas Taylor]

And here's this episode's Mystery. If you know that sound, submit your guess at the web address mystery.20k.org Anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win a super soft 20,000Hz T shirt. And if you want to snag a super soft T shirt right now, just head to 20k.org shop. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp one of the reasons I love the holidays is that it gives me a chance to show my family and friends how grateful I am to have them in my life. But this holiday season, while you're thinking of ways to make the people that you care about happy, don't forget about your needs. Life is complicated and there's tons of pressure and stress, and I've found one of the best ways to manage it is to talk it out with a professional therapist. I've personally been in therapy for over 20 years, and if it's something you're thinking about, BetterHelp is a great way to start that journey. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that's affordable, flexible and convenient. To get started, all you have to do is fill out a short questionnaire. Then you'll be matched with a licensed professional therapist. Since the sessions are online, they're easy to fit into your schedule, and you'll never have to waste time driving to an office or sitting in a waiting room. The whole process can be much easier than finding an in person therapist. Plus, if you ever decide that your therapist isn't the right fit, you can always switch to a new one easily and free of charge. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com 20k today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com 2 0k in the 1960s, some scientists predicted that by now we'd be living on the moon, driving flying cars and taking all of our daily nutrition in a single pill. And yet, here we are. The point is, it's hard to predict the future, but you can still make smart decisions for the future of your business, thanks to NetSuite. NetSuite by Oracle is the number one cloud based enterprise resource planning system. And what that means in normalspeak is that it brings all of your accounting, financial management, inventory and HR software into a single platform. The result is all of that crucial data ends up in one unified place. Then you can use NetSuite's Real Time Insights and forecasting tools to make informed decisions. On top of that, netsuite will save you a ton of time. And as we all know, time is money. If you're ready to stop looking backwards and start looking forwards, then I highly recommend signing up with NetSuite. Chances are, there are opportunities for your business that you never even considered. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com 20,000. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com 20.

[Leila Battison]

Just like proud parents, dog owners will often claim that their pooch is especially brilliant. And while dogs are highly impressive as a species, some individuals really do go above and beyond.

[John Pilly]

Chase, find mongrel. Find mongrel. Yeah, good girl. That's mongrel.

[Leila Battison]

That's a clip of Dr. John Pilly and his border collie chaser.

[John Pilly]

Chase, find croc. Find croc. There's croc chase.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Croc chaser is known as the smartest dog in the world, having an understanding of the names of over a thousand objects.

[Leila Battison]

That's Pili Bianchi, who managed and co trained chaser with her father, John.

[Pilly Bianchi]

My father was a very charismatic human being. He was a naturalist. He was very connected with nature. He was actually an expert whitewater paddler, great windsurfer, hiker.

[Leila Battison]

John was also a professor of psychology at Woodford College in South Carolina. He was especially interested in animal cognition, and he closely followed researchers who were attempting to teach human language to animals like dolphins, apes, and parrots.

[Pilly Bianchi]

These things inspired him to want to teach his dog human language.

[Leila Battison]

At that time, John's dog was a mixed breed border collie called Yasha.

[Pilly Bianchi]

We got Yasha in the late 80s, and he was really truly my father's heart dog. He went everywhere with my dad. He was a very assertive dog and had a lot of confidence. And Yasha was so smart. He learned behavior so quickly that my dad decided it would be infinitely more fun to use dogs in the classroom than rats and pigeons. So Yasha became his research partner, and he brought him into the class every day.

[Leila Battison]

In class, John and his students explored canine understanding as they taught their dogs to do complex behaviors. But teaching the building blocks of language proved more of a challenge.

[Pilly Bianchi]

When we speak to our pets, we usually talk in phrases so they don't know. Fetch the paper is three words they just understand. Oh, yeah, I get to run outside and grab that thing on the lawn and run back in the house. So when my father tried to teach proper noun names like paper, Yasha was understandably confused when the paper was back in the house because it had no value to him. The fun part was racing out the door, grabbing this thing. But this thing he was not allowed to play with. He couldn't chase it, chew it, or bounce it. So once it was in the house, it had no value. So sadly, he concluded that dogs were not able to learn language the way that most children do.

[Leila Battison]

Having come to this conclusion, John backed off from trying to teach language to dogs. In his mid-70s, he retired from Teaching and settled into a quiet life with his wife Sally. In retirement, John started going to border collie trials where dogs showcase their skills in herding sheep according to farmers whistles and instructions. One night after one of those trials, John was sitting around a campfire with some of the farmers.

[Pilly Bianchi]

He had the audacity to say, you know, your dogs are incredible. The nuance that they can understand with sounds and whistles and their relationship with the sheep is really remarkable. But science tells us they don't really understand proper nouns. They don't even understand their own name. It's just a label and it's just a cue to look. So one crusty farmer said to him, wow, is that. That's what science tells us? Well, you tell me why. I can call Jeb out of four other dogs and ask him to get millie and Tilly, two different sheep out of 100 sheep. He will do it every time. You tell me what science has to say about that. This severely humbled my father and he realized that he needed to go back to the drawing board and pay attention to the people that were actually using dogs in day to day life.

[Leila Battison]

By that time, John sadly no longer had Yasha in his life.

[Pilly Bianchi]

He had gone 10 years without a dog after Yash passed away, because it really threw him more than he realized.

[Leila Battison]

But as John explained in a video, his wife Sally got tired of him moping around the house in retirement. And she knew exactly what would cure him.

[John Pilly]

Sally, my wife knows me better than myself. She knew that I needed some new challenge. She knew how much I loved a dog. So Sally told me one day just before Christmas, you're going to have a new dog. And that made me happy.

[Leila Battison]

So they went out to the border collie breeder and looked at the litter and one particular puppy stood out.

[Pilly Bianchi]

To be honest, she chose them. She came up to them and went and sat in his lap.

[Leila Battison]

They named her Chaser. And from that moment, Pilly could see that they were going to be an unstoppable team.

[Pilly Bianchi]

He was so charismatic and Chaser was adorable. She was very social and I knew she was gonna sparkle on camera and they were both gonna be famous.

[Leila Battison]

Pilly still remembers when she saw that greatness for the first time.

[Pilly Bianchi]

When I came home for Christmas, she was about 8 months old at this time, and he had this huge pile of toys. I believe at this time There were about 200 toys and they looked like they had been slobbered over one too many times. And I'm watching as he asked her to find specific toys out of this huge pile. And she did it flawlessly.

[John Pilly]

Chaser, find paws. Go get paws. Yeah, there's paws. Peppermint. Find peppermint. Find peppermint. Yeah, there's peppermint.

[Leila Battison]

John had followed the example of those farmers who taught their dogs the names of every sheep in the flock. And chaser was rapidly becoming the world's best toy herding dog. But it turns out teaching dogs the names of things isn't easy.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Generally, dogs struggle with object labels.

[Leila Battison]

Again, that's Dr. Daniel Mills.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

If I teach you that a thing about 3 or 4 inches in diameter is a ball, and I then give you a choice between a cube that is about 3 or 4 inches in diameter and a spherical object that is 10 inches in diameter, and I say, which of these is a ball? You'll go for the large sphere.

[Leila Battison]

That's because humans have a shape bias, meaning we primarily recognize objects based on their shape. On the other hand, if you're a.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Dog, you'll go for the cube, because dogs don't have a shape bias. They have a size bias. When it comes to labels like that, intrinsically, it makes sense because we're hunter gatherers, and so shape is important for identifying different berries. That red berry is poisonous. That red berry is a raspberry.

[Leila Battison]

On top of that, we're also tool users.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

The shape of something affects what you can do with it. So a screwdriver is for putting screws in, not nails into a wall. So shape is very important to us. Why would shape be important to a dog? Size is important to a dog because if you're really big, I need two of my mates to bring you down and eat you. So to a dog, a ball is not actually a spherical object. It's probably a fetchy thing. And a stick and a ball are both fetchy things as far as the dog's concerned. You could call them both balls and the dog wouldn't mind.

[Leila Battison]

In order to teach chaser the difference between two fetchy things, John Pilly worked with her for five hours a day.

[Pilly Bianchi]

When people hear that he taught her five hours a day, they usually misinterpret this because he played with her for five hours a day.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Chaser was taught stuff in the context of play. So play is important because it's very highly motivating and it's self reinforcing. It's good that people use click and treat, but actually, I don't want to be seen as a food dispenser by my dog. I want to be seen by my dog as my friend and play is one of the ways that you build friendships.

[Leila Battison]

And like any good friend, Chaser was eager to learn the rules of the games that John wanted to play.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

So using play, you encourage the animal. This is a cooperative activity. And the label that I put to this object becomes important for that game.

[Leila Battison]

With play as the foundation for Chase's learning, the objects that became important to her were those ragged, slobbered over toys. In the end, she had a thousand of them.

[Pilly Bianchi]

She liked toys. That was her happy place. And she needed a vocabulary. So these thousand objects were the start of her vocabulary.

[Leila Battison]

So how do you teach a dog the names of a thousand objects?

[Pilly Bianchi]

He set her up to succeed by using a method called errorless learning. Errorless learning is hosting a situation where she could not make a mistake. So the first object she learned was a blue ball. And he would show it to her and say, chaser, this is blue. And he would roll it to her and he would say, take blue. So of course she was motivated. She took the ball in her mouth and then he let her play with it for a while. Then he would ask her to find blue, and he would hide it in plain sight. So she would find blue and pick it blue, and then he end up putting it on the couch, find blue, constantly repeating the name of the object with the object. And after about three days when she could find this toy in another room, he would move on to another object. And then to keep these objects in her long term memory, he would rehearse them a couple of times each day, but always just through two or three minute sessions of play.

[Leila Battison]

John had started this training when Chaser was just a few weeks old. So it was central to all of their interactions.

[Pilly Bianchi]

So in her fifth month, she had that aha moment that ah, objects have names when he says this is, he's pairing the object. And she began learning incredibly fast on one trial alone.

[Leila Battison]

After named objects, the next challenge for Chaser was the verbs, the doing words. Now, most of us teach our dogs verbs like sit or lie down, but John wanted to combine verbs with the proper nouns she already knew. And just like he had done with.

[Pilly Bianchi]

The objects, he also kept it very simple. So he was pairing behavior with the ball. So she understood it's not just fetch the ball. She could take the ball, she could find the ball, she could toss the ball. So she was pairing the name of these objects with a verb. So at that point she started understanding ah verbs. These are different from these objects. So she could catch snowflake, she could paw snowflake, she Could Nose. Snowflake. She could combine these independently.

[John Pilly]

Chase. Nose. Lifesaver. There it is, Paul. Lifesaver.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Yes.

[John Pilly]

Good girl.

[Leila Battison]

With all of these elements of human language in her repertoire, the world really became Chaser's oyster.

[Pilly Bianchi]

This really accelerated her learning because learning builds upon learning. She was able to learn the qualifying words like fast and slow and adjectives like big or smaller, as well as abstract concepts like, again, Repeat. Another reverse.

[John Pilly]

Look up, look up, look up. I said good girl.

[Leila Battison]

Time and time again, Chaser proved her remarkable understanding of language. She knew the names of places around her property, like road, grass, and front porch. She knew her individual balls by name, but she also knew that they were all balls, which was different from a toy. And if John asked for a toy that she'd never seen or heard of before.

[John Pilly]

Chase, come here. Find charcoal. Pop Pop. Pop pop wants charcoal.

[Leila Battison]

Chaser would look through her toys and deduce that it must be the one that she didn't recognize.

[John Pilly]

There's charcoal. Good girl.

[Pilly Bianchi]

What Chaser was able to do was not rote behavior. It was an understanding that words had independent meaning.

[Leila Battison]

Most importantly, she understood how these meanings worked together. For instance, John could give her a command like to Santa Claus, take flip, flop.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Those are four independent words, and she could execute these flawlessly. And what that demonstrates is that dogs do have conceptual understanding. They're very intelligent animals, and communication with them is certainly possible and so important.

[Leila Battison]

Once Chaser understood that everything around her had a name, she started picking up on words on her own and even expressing opinions about things. For instance, Pilly's mom, Sally, would often go on walks with a group of other seniors and their dogs.

[Pilly Bianchi]

She had this group called the Yaya Winos. They were a bunch of really crusty, saucy seniors that shared their love of bourbon and dogs. So they would all go walking in the evening with their dogs. There were about five of them.

[Leila Battison]

One of those dogs was named Casey.

[Pilly Bianchi]

We were sitting around a table one night at dinner, and my mom said, I'm not going to go on the walk tonight because Casey's visiting, and Chaser doesn't really like Casey. So out of nowhere, Chaser came up to the table, and she gave a little growl. And I was like, what? What's going on with Casey? And mom said, chaser doesn't like her because she's always up in Chaser's butt and her grill. You know, Chaser tolerated this because she's a lover, not a fighter, but she didn't care for Casey. So when we said Casey's Name again. Chaser. Give a bigger growl.

[John Pilly]

Growl.

[Pilly Bianchi]

And so I was like, wow, Chaser, you don't like Casey. And then she started to get very animated and started barking out loud. She had learned this dog's name simply by listening when they were on walks. So at this point, I decided I'm gonna ask Chaser about the other dogs. So I asked about Fafner. She just wagged her tail. Then I asked her about Dixie. Dixie was nice. She liked Dixie too. Then I asked about Slick, and she started growling. She didn't too much care for Slick. And then there was another dog named Hollywood, and she didn't like Holly either. She gave a little growl. But then we asked about Casey again, and she just started full fledged barking.

[Leila Battison]

John put Chaser through rigorous testing and published two scientific papers documenting her achievements.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Chaser has been called the scientifically most important dog in the last 100 years, and that is because of the way that she learned language and beyond the.

[Leila Battison]

Realm of academia, Chaser made headlines all around the world. She was featured in news reports and magazine articles and showed off her skills to Anderson Cooper and Neil Degrasse Tyson.

[Dallas Taylor]

Chaser, the border Collie, lives with Dr. John Pillow.

[John Pilly]

Chaser, the canine knows the names of over 1,000 toys.

[Pilly Bianchi]

She's been trained intensively for three years.

[John Pilly]

She may be the smartest dog in.

[Leila Battison]

The world, and I've come to check.

[Dallas Taylor]

Out out what she can do.

[Leila Battison]

But Pilly thinks the focus is in the wrong place.

[Pilly Bianchi]

A lot of researchers confidently proclaim from their high horses in their office that she was an outlier. She was an innate genius. But that's not true. She wasn't born as some animal phenom.

[Leila Battison]

As Pilly sees it, all dogs could be capable of what Chaser achieved if they had access to the innovative training that her father pioneered.

[Pilly Bianchi]

People don't recognize it was the man who was so smart. He was her sensei, and she was his grasshopper.

[Leila Battison]

Together, John and Chaser showed the world how to unlock their dog's potential. But it was a golden partnership, destined not to last.

[Pilly Bianchi]

We all know that dogs live short, beautiful lives. They're never here long enough. So we knew that Chaser wasn't going to live forever. And my dad was in his 80s when he had his success with Chaser. So who knew who was going to go first because they were both up in their years.

[Leila Battison]

In the end, it was John.

[Pilly Bianchi]

He got sick with a rare form of leukemia when he was 89, and six weeks later, he was gone.

[Leila Battison]

In those final weeks, it seemed like it Was tough for Chaser to be in the room with John and to see him in that condition.

[Pilly Bianchi]

But then the last day, Chaser positioned herself right at the foot of his bed, and she pulled her shoulders really close together. Her tail was tucked, her ear was backed. She's staring at my father with that border collie eye. And out of nowhere, she gave one loud, sharp bark. And it stunned us all into silence. You know, we felt goosebumps creeping up our arms and down our neck and realized that she was not commanding him to wake up. She was bidding him goodbye. And he passed away. Eight hours later, he was gone. So Chaser knew, and she was okay with it.

[Leila Battison]

Without her sensei, the aging Chaser started to decline. In the year after John's death, she.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Started going downhill pretty fast. A year later, she was really not doing well. She couldn't stand up any longer. Her breathing was labored. And we determined it was time.

[Leila Battison]

When the day came, the vet came out to their house so Chaser could pass in the place that she was most comfortable.

[Pilly Bianchi]

And it was just. It was devastating. We just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. We ended up burying her in the backyard with our other family pets, with Yasha and Grindel.

[Leila Battison]

Chase's passing was felt around the world.

[Pilly Bianchi]

When it was announced in the Times. It went globally viral in just thousands of papers across the world, internationally, and other languages. So she was mourned. She was mourned.

[Leila Battison]

Today, Pilly is carrying on her father's legacy with a nonprofit called the Chaser Initiative, which aims to educate children about the power of play based learning.

[Pilly Bianchi]

We're going into classrooms and teaching them about empathy and learning through play with dogs. The other arm of the Chaser Initiative is canine welfare research. So again, it's carrying Chaser's legacy forward, Encouraging conversations and thoughtful ways that we can really find a way to give back to dogs.

[Leila Battison]

To many, Chaser is simply the famous dog who learned a thousand words. But John and Chaser's story is about more than just a clever dog and an innovative researcher. It's about what's really possible when a dog and its human understand each other better.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Communication is very important in all species, and if you can crack that code working with your dog, this greatly enlarges their world. And it's also fast tracking our relationship and our bond with animals.

[Dr. Daniel Mills]

Any relationship, if it's going to be successful, depends on good communication. It's really important that we learn to communicate better with our dogs because that's the basis on which we have a peaceful relationship. We don't want to be misunderstood and we don't want to misunderstand our dogs. So we should be putting the effort in to make sure that what we want from our dogs is both fair but also clear.

[Pilly Bianchi]

Dogs are constantly listening, so why wouldn't we channel language with them? A lot of times people pay attention to what their dog is really saying to them, but dogs teach us so much and if we just pay attention, we're going to be better humans because of it.

[Dallas Taylor]

20,000 Hz is produced out of the Sound Design Studios of De Facto. Hear [e-mail] this episode was written and.

[Leila Battison]

Produced by Leila Battison and Casey Emerling.

[Dallas Taylor]

With help from Grace East. It was sound design and mixed by Jesus Zartiaga. Thanks to our guests Pilly Bianchi and Daniel Mills. Pilly's new book, for the Love of Dog, is a beautifully illustrated guide to forging a better relationship with your dog. You can find it wherever books are sold. To learn more about the Chaser Initiative as well as Daniel's animal research, just follow the links in the show notes. I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.