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Key points
- The Chaser Initiative is dedicated to educating children about the power of play-based learning and positive reinforcement.
- Chaser can be a link, a "gateway" dog, to connect kids and adults to a wide range of nonhumans and nature in general.
- Chaser and John Pilley are exemplary models to show children why science matters, how it works, and that discovery is in perpetual motion.
I've always been inspired by Chaser, the legendary border collie, and her amazing ability to learn the names of over 1,000 toys and different grammatical sentences, Chaser's story is well-documented in John W. Pilley and Hilary Hinzmann's award-winning book Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words. But there's much more to Chaser's legacy, including a wonderful project called The Chaser Initiative dedicated to educating children (K-12) about the power of play-based learning and positive reinforcement.
I recently spoke with John's daughter, Deb Pilley Bianchi, and am thrilled she could tell us more about this landmark educational project.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you establish The Chaser Initiative?
Deb Pilley Bianchi: We established The Chaser Initiative to honor the legacy of my father Dr. John Pilley and his groundbreaking research with his beloved dog Chaser. The primary focus of their research was teaching Chaser human language and exploring the boundaries of her memory system, which proved to be boundless. Chaser learned the names of over 1,000 objects, retaining them in her long-term memory for over three years. She also had conceptual understanding of common nouns, verbs, adverbs, simple syntax, and learning by exclusion.
My father was able to demonstrate empirically that family dogs are smarter than we have given them credit for, and that interspecies communication is possible if we both learn each other’s language.
The extraordinary methods used for Chaser’s learning were play and positive reinforcement. When seasoned educator Ingrid Quigg Norris came to me with a vision, inspired by my dad’s play-based learning, I knew she was barking up the right tree. Ingrid and I shared my father’s ideology to unleash the genius of all animals and expand humanity’s horizons to encompass a new understanding of ourselves in the natural world.
MB: How does this project relate to your background and general areas of interest?
DPB: Growing up with a father who was an animal behaviorist, no family pet was off limits as a science fair project. My sister and I were accomplished in operant conditioning when we were still in grade school and scientific jargon was regular banter around the dinner table.
Fast forward 25 years, I never imagined I would be using those same skills to collaborate with an octogenarian and his dog.
MB: Who is your intended audience?
DPB: Children, K-12. Early in my father’s career, he would administer IQ tests to kids. He discovered that there are critical markers in the development of young minds, and if we miss these markers, it becomes more challenging for learning to take place. He used this information with Chaser as a puppy, channeling her innate instincts for learning through play. When learning is fun, it happens very rapidly, and we are more likely to repeat that behavior because it is pleasurable.
This became our model, to teach students the value of nurturing innate gifts. We hope to shape young minds in understanding that they have a purpose and how to identify that. This toolbox will enable them to develop empathic relationships with animals and each other.
MB: What are some of your major goals?
DBP: For kids to understand that one size does not fit all when it comes to learning and if learning does not take place, we need to change the methods.
We want to reshape the way that kids perceive their pets. Nature is closer than they realize in our experiences with dogs and there are simple truths that dogs teach us; you get what you give, the joy of repetition, reading body language, and vocalizations, these are just a few. We hope we are giving children skills to better understand their pets' behaviors and that if we tap into the individuality in pets, we can more easily recognize it in humans and ourselves.
MB: How does your initiative differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?
DPB: The beauty of The Chaser Initiative is that there is an actual dog who kids can relate to and tons of videos where they can see her in action. My father constantly reinforced that for science to reach the masses, we must be able to relay valuable information in ways that people can see themselves. Otherwise, we are dead in the water.
We have found this elusive link in Chaser. While she has been called a “genius,” she was a dog’s dog. She loved rolling in dead things, eating the trash, chasing critters, and getting sprayed with the garden hose. Her favorite audiences were children, because they were the best playmates. We have found in Chaser, as well as all our family dogs, that there is an innate childlike beauty and if nurtured, dogs have a perpetual enthusiasm and devotion that spans their lifetimes. But only if we mere mortals can tap into their unique genius.1
We do that by paying attention to the individual sitting in front of you—human, dog, cat, snake, or hedgehog. Each species has characteristics, but that does not give valuable information on the individual.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about The Chaser Initiative they will appreciate dogs for who they are and how we can learn from them?
DPB: Yes. People love their dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs, reptiles, and many other creatures. Sometimes these animals are our only source of touch and connection. Here we stand, in a world that is searching for greater ways to connect and communicate. We are looking for common ground. Dogs are the gateway. This remarkable creature who has been sitting at our feet is the answer in plain sight. They are the only species on the planet that has chosen us and we them for 40,000 years sharing an evolutionary process. Dogs are our direct connection to nature, they have a paw in the natural and human world, which is critical at this moment in time.
Dogs are the magic and mystical we have been searching for since we abandoned them 3,000 years ago for monotheism. Science has been discovering that we share stunning cognitive similarities. We have more in common than different and Chaser is evidence of this.2
Chaser and my father are concrete, exemplary models to show children why science matters, how it works, and that discovery is in perpetual motion.3
Let’s learn to love each other by taking a page from their playbook. If we don’t, we are truly the lesser of the two species.
References
In conversation with Deb Pilley Bianchi, educator, musician, and dog lover. Her book For the Love of Dog illustrated by Calum Heath will be published in September 2023 by Princeton Architectural Press. For a conversation with John Pilley click here.
1) The word genius derives from Greek and Latin words meaning “to beget,” “to be born,” or “to come into being.” It is closely related to the word genesis. It is also linked to the word genial, which means, among other things, “festive,” “conducive to growth,” “enlivening,” and “jovial.” Combining these two sets of definitions comes closest to the meaning of the word genius, one’s potential, unleashed, one’s joy, discovered. Giving birth to one’s joy. (Armstrong, Thomas. The Natural Genius of Children. American Institute for Learning and Human Development, 2020)
2) While each dog has its own genetic blueprint, they are also a product of human behavior. We are on the precipice of losing the remarkable animal that has shared our evolutionary space for thousands of millennia. We need to recognize that humans are the most invasive species on the planet and that positive and negative experiences shape the dog sitting in front of you.
3) My father’s work with Chaser demonstrates that we have a responsibility to dogs when they enter our home. Not only how we can protect them, but in our need to have a greater respect for what we can learn from them.
