You read the title correctly. Willow, the 12-year old English Terrier mix, can read. Amazing!! Dogs are smarter than we give them credit for. Having three dogs, I get to see how complex dogs actually are, along with their fascinating talents. They learn tricks quickly, and they remember quite well. In a week, my dogs will learn a new trick and remember it forever, even when I don’t work with them for months on the tricks.
Willow’s owner, Lyssa Howells, taught her pup how to read because of a bet she agreed to with a friend. Howells won the bet and a trip to Baja!! I read about the talented Willow in the latest edition of People magazine, a glossy magazine I read weekly and have subscribed to for years. Brooklyn Animal Behaviorist, Peter Borchelt, claims that Willow is not actually reading, but memorizing the shapes of the letters. Hmm… I’m not an expert on how people learn to read, but isn’t that what children do when they first start to learn how to read? They recognize the shape of an A, a B, a C, and so on.
Anyway, Willow has learned to read the cue cards from which Howell has taught her. The point is, dogs are smart and with training, they could probably learn many other extraordinary things, like riding a bike (check out a previous (DOG)SPIRED post about the Dalmatian riding a bike!!).
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Tags: amazing dogs, dog tricks, People magazine, reading, Talented Dogs
