RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Rachel Martin. He was thought to be the world's smartest dog. Chaser the border collie was trained by his owner, Dr. John Pilley, to understand more than a thousand nouns and basic sentence structure. Pilley taught Chaser for up to five hours a day using stuffed animals, balls and Frisbees. Pilley died last year at the age of 89. According to The New York Times, his canine companion died last week. A portion of a street in Spartanburg, S.C., will be named Chaser the Border Collie Boulevard.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this report, we incorrectly refer to Chaser the border collie with male pronouns. The dog was female.] Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.