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Border Collie Harvey Enters Studies After Learning Names of 221 Toys

Scientists aim to use his word-learning skills to develop screening tasks for dogs suited to assistance work.

Overview

  • The seven-year-old Border Collie from Reading recognises more than 200 words and retrieves toys by name.
  • Research teams in Portsmouth and Budapest have accepted Harvey into controlled cognition studies.
  • Owner Irene Hewlett built his ability through stepwise training and says the task clicked after the fourth toy.
  • University of Portsmouth findings suggest only about ten dogs worldwide show comparable object-word mapping.
  • Harvey sometimes confuses similar-sounding names but resolves them by identifying toys through mouth feel.