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June 10, 2004

Twilight bark revealed!

Deana sent this story from Yahoo! News:

German researchers have found a border collie named Rico who understands more than 200 words and can learn new ones as quickly as many children.

...The researchers found that Rico knows the names of dozens of play toys and can find the one called for by his owner.

...The border collie, a breed known primarily for its herding ability, was able to go to the room with the toys and, seven times out of 10, bring back the one he had not seen before.

..."Apparently he was able to link the novel word to the novel item based on exclusion learning, either because he knew that the familiar items already had names or because they were not novel," said the researchers.

Posted by Chris at June 10, 2004 10:17 AM

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