Chaser, a border collie in Spartanburg, South Carolina, trained by retired psychology professor John W. Pilley starting in 2004, learned the proper-noun names of 1,022 individual toys and could retrieve each by name.

The Dog With 1,022 Names. Chaser was a border collie in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Her owner was a retired psychology professor. He trained her for 5 hours a day. By 2011, she knew 1,022 proper nouns. Each was the name of a specific toy. She could fetch any of them on command.