A reading dog??

Allegedly this woman taught a dog to read:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3405263.html

It's quite fascinating if true but i can't help thinking there must be some kind of hand signal involved.

Note to Becky if she reads this - can we have this as one of the trick training challenges one week!?!

I've read things about dogs reading before......apparently it's just recognition - like hand signals.

If you show them the word 'sit', and say it so they do the action - you slowly faze the word out, so they just recognise the writing.

I bet it's not that hard really.......I use hand signals - I point to the floor for down, hand up for sit etc.....I really don't think it's much different!

I think it should be done for our trick challenge!

It looks a fun thing to try. I didn't realise dogs could see two dimensional images that well, though Chip loves watching dogs on television

I taugth our old collie how to count. He could do simple addition to ten...and subtraction...he would bark the answer. I trained him to speak on command, to me nodding my head to each bark..I gradually made me head movement smaller and smaller til I could just flick my eyes as he concentrated so hard looking at me....it was amazing to look at...but still a trick at the end of the day.Same sort of thing

I sent that link to the trainer of the class we go to. She's just replied that her advanced class did that a few years ago So now I know its possible reading lessons start next week

It's just recognition. At a training class I used to go to they used different shapes (triangle, circle, square etc) so dogs can recognise things from looking at them and associate them with a word.
Not sure be any good for the trick challenge as would take far too long!
Becky

Well I have taught Bruce to count by tapping it out with his foot, so looks like reading is next on the agenda!!