Harvey knows the names of 203 of his toys and he is able to fetch them all for his owner Irene Hewlett. The brainy six-year-old has been branded one of the world’s brightest canines
A border collie has been hailed Britain’s smartest dog after learning more than 200 words.
Harvey knows the names of 203 of his toys and he is able to fetch them all for his owner Irene Hewlett. The brainy six-year-old has been branded one of the world’s brightest canines by boffins at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, who are studying gifted hounds that have memorized toy names. Irene, of Reading, Berks, said: “Every time he learns a new name I end up doing a happy dance and telling him he is the cleverest dog in the world.
“It’s quite the party trick from Harvey.”
The mum-of-two said Harvey can sniff out all the toys in almost two hours if she reads out the names of them to him, which include llama, asparagus and mermaid.
He will head into whichever room each one is located and bring it back to her and he “loves doing it because he is a border collie who likes to work and to be challenged”.
Harvey is also able to tidy his toys away by placing them in a box or bag.
After Irene and her lawyer husband Neil bought Harvey she was inspired to teach him toy names after hearing about a border collie called Chaser in the US, who learned the names of 1,022 objects over three years.
Irene said: “He understood that when I said a name of a toy, he should remember it and be able to fetch it.
“Whenever I say the name of a toy, Harvey’s ears prick up and he runs off to find it immediately.”
The six-year-long project has discovered that more than 40 pooches from nine countries, including Britain, are ‘gifted word learners’.