Chaser has a way with words. She knows over a thousand of them—more than any other animal of any species except humans. In addition to common nouns like house, ball, and tree, she has memorized the names of more than one thousand toys and can retrieve any of them on command. Based on that learning, she and her owner and trainer, retired psychologist John Pilley, have moved on to further impressive feats, demonstrating her ability to understand sentences with multiple elements of grammar and to learn new behaviors by imitation. John’s ingenuity and tenacity as a researcher are as impressive as Chaser’s accomplishments. His groundbreaking approach has opened the door to a new understanding of animal intelligence, one that requires us to reconsider what actually goes on in a dog’s mind. Chaser’s achievements reveal her use of deductive reasoning and complex problem-solving skills to address novel challenges. Yet astonishingly, Chaser isn’t unique. John’s training methods can be adopted by any dog lover. Through the poignant story of how he trained Chaser, raised her as a member of the Pilley family, and proved her abilities to the scientific community, he reveals the positive impact of incorporating learning into play and more effectively channeling a dog’s natural drives. John’s work with Chaser offers a fresh perspective on what’s possible in the relationship between a dog and a human. His story points us toward a new way of relating to our canine companions that takes into account our evolving understanding of the way animals and humans learn.

Originally published in Washington 1924, and republished in a revised and up-dated edition in the same year, this extremely scarce early work on the Collie is both expensive and hard to find in any edition. VINTAGE DOG BOOKS have republished the revised edition, using the original text and photographs, as part of their CLASSIC BREED BOOKS series. The authors were highly respected figures in the dog world with Dr. Bennett being President of the Collie Club of America, and C.H. Wheeler being an expert on the history and origins of the Collie in the United Kingdom. Both men realised the great need for a modern volume on the Collie. This resulted in a work giving a fuller and more complete history of the breed than was hitherto available. They also took up the question of breeding in a more thorough manner than any other work of its kind in existence. The book's three hundred and fifty six pages consist of ten comprehensive chapters, illustrated with rare vintage photographs of Collie Champions for the period beginning circa 1874 through to 1923. Over two thirds of the work is devoted to detailed records of individual Collies. Although published in the U.S.A., the content is evenly divided between British Collies and their history, and their American cousins. Chapters include: - Origin - History - Blue Merles - American Collies - The Typical Collie - Breeding - Foods and Feeding - Kennelling - Exhibiting - Common Ailments. This is a fascinating read for any Collie enthusiast or historian of the breed, and also contains much information that is still useful and practical today. Many of the earliest dog breed books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. VINTAGE DOG BOOKS are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This early work by Albert Payson Terhune was originally published in 1917. 'A Highland Collie' is one of Terhune's well-loved canine stories. Terhune was a famous American author, dog breeder, and journalist, best known for his adventure novels about collies.

The Romance of the Collie: True Tales of an Amazing Breed is an in-depth look into the true personality of the collie. Inside these covers, one will read about famous collies, such as Lassie, the most famous canine in the world, and Reveille, the mascot of Texas A&M. There are stories about collie heroes, the history of collies in military service, collie collectibles, and Albert Payson Terhune's famous Sunnybank collies. One will also meet Bobbie and Shep, two collies whose love for their masters showed the world what the heart of a collie is all about.

Gives the reader a professional's insight into this world-wide favorite breed.

The Collie - A Complete Anthology of the Dog gathers together all the best early writing on the breed from our library of scarce, out-of-print antiquarian books and documents and reprints it in a quality, modern edition. This anthology includes chapters taken from a comprehensive range of books, many of them now rare and much sought-after works, all of them written by renowned breed experts of their day. These books are treasure troves of information about the breed - The physical points, temperaments, and special abilities are given; celebrated dogs are discussed and pictured; and the history of the breed and pedigrees of famous champions are also provided. The contents were well illustrated with numerous photographs of leading and famous dogs of that era and these are all reproduced to the highest quality. Books used include: The Dogs Of The British Islands by Rawdon B. Lee (1899), The Practical Dog Book by Edward C. Ash (1930), Dogs Of The World by Arthur Craven (1931) and many others.