Here, toy..
Dog knows names of all 231 playthings in his baskets
HERE’S one dog who really is a clever boy...
Border collie Max has learned the names of all 231 of his toys and his owners believe that he is Britain’s smartest pooch.
Martin Morris, 48, has been teaching Max, seven, the names of his toys since he was a puppy.
He said: ”Max is a very talented boy. We think he should be famous.
“We’ve got seven wash baskets overflowing with toys.
“We’re at 231 now, and he knows every one of their names. You can test him all you like, even with toys that haven’t seen the light of day in a while. He’ll still recognise it.”
Martin and his wife Helen, 49, have spent more than £1,000 on toys for their beloved pet.
“It’s taken us seven years to get to this stage. We read about the US collie called Chaser, who knows the names of 1,022 toys,” said Martin.
“But I don’t think any dog in the UK has managed to surpass 231, making our boy the smartest.
“We’d buy Max a toy pretty much every week – Hector the Hedgehog, Sophia the Squirrel and Deeno the Dino, to name a few. And every night, before we go to bed, we play the name game.”
After lining a selection of his toys up on the floor, they shout out a name and off he runs to pick it out.
Taxi driver Martin, from Shrewsbury, Shrops, said: ”His favourite is
Leo the Lion.
He’s the first one we ever bought for him, and he still remembers him.”
The couple adopted Max – who has had some of the toys since he was 12 weeks old – after he was born to two working farm sheepdogs.
Border collies are thought to be the brightest of the UK dog breeds.
And last year they came top when
academics in Hungary launched a global campaign to find pets which were “gifted word learners” and could remember the names of more than 100 toys.
Out of the 41 dogs they identified, more than half were Border collies. Other smart breeds included corgi, Pekingese, shih-tzu and poodle.