5 Border Collie Fun Facts (That Are Actually True)

Quick take

• The most famous Border Collie in science is Chaser, who learned the names of 1,022 objects.
• Border Collies top at least one well-known intelligence ranking, but that ranking measures something specific.
• A brilliant dog is not automatically an easy pet. It needs a job to do.

1. Chaser knew 1,022 object names

Psychologist John Pilley and colleague Alliston Reid taught a Border Collie named Chaser to pick out 1,022 objects by name, mostly stuffed animals, balls and other toys ^1,2. The results were published in 2011 in the journal Behavioural Processes ¹.

2. It took years of daily training

Pilley described training Chaser for about five hours a day for three years ². The researchers stopped because of their own time limits, not because Chaser reached a limit ².

3. She treated names as names

The experiments tested whether Chaser understood object names as nouns, not just as “fetch” commands. In one test, she responded correctly to each combination, even on the first try, and she showed she could learn a new name by exclusion, picking the unfamiliar toy when asked for a word she had not heard ². Later work covered how she understood short sentences ².

4. Chaser lived to 15

Chaser was born on 28 April 2004 and died on 23 July 2019 ³. Her case is among the best-known demonstrations of what a dog can learn about words, but it comes from one exceptional, intensively trained dog, so it doesn’t tell us what every Border Collie can do ².

5. It ranks first in a famous intelligence list

In his 1994 book The Intelligence of Dogs, psychologist Stanley Coren ranked breeds by working and obedience intelligence, based on a survey of obedience judges. The Border Collie came first, ahead of the Poodle and the German Shepherd Dog ⁴. That ranking measures how quickly a breed learns and obeys commands, not problem-solving or every kind of dog smarts ⁴.

Thinking of getting a Border Collie?

A clever, high-drive working breed needs plenty of exercise and mental work: training, scent games, puzzles. Without it, bored dogs can invent their own jobs. See our guides to exercise and mental stimulation and reward-based training.

Want the full picture? Read our complete Border Collie breed profile.