Boundless Play w/ Pilley Bianchi

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What’s The Most Important Lesson From Dogs? ‘Play’ May Be The Answer

About The Episode

Growing up, Pilley Bianchi's father – Dr. John Pilley – was a psychology professor at Wofford College in South Carolina, where he taught for three decades. He was also a behavioral psychologist, and brought that perspective into the classroom. He had a lab where Pilley and her siblings would always stop by, which started with rats and pigeons but later on turned to dogs. As far back as the '70s and '80s, he was bringing dogs into class to help improve learning with students.

Dr. John Pilley wanted to test the boundaries of the canine mind. Their family's first dog that really set the course for what was to come was Yasha, a German Shepard and Border Collie mix who learned behavior very quickly. And while it hurt deeply when he passed away, the next dog – 10 years later – was Chaser, who would build off the ground that Yasha had carved out so far.

Training Chaser started early. If she were to "learn a new language" so to speak, she would have to develop a vocabulary. Dr. Pilley's idea was to teach her the names of toys. Many toys. He would play with one object for a few days, test Chaser, and repeat with a new object. This connected with the key idea of play as a method of learning. Treats can often be too distracting for dogs, where that's all they can really focus on. Chaser loved to play, so she was more engaged in the learning process and never grew tired of the repetition. Dogs, actually, have a joy for repetition – we're the ones who get tired of it and sometimes stop too early. He also embraced Chaser's innate instincts and behavior, which only led her to be happier to work harder.

Eventually, Chaser learned over 1,000 objects and was able to learn words independent from nouns and adverbs. When the research paper came out about this, Chaser was deemed by many as "the smartest dog in the world" for these never-before-seen abilities to memorize and learn the language. It showed that there's still so much untapped room for us to learn about what dogs are capable of.

It was a lifelong culmination of his work that led Dr. Pilley to having the greatest professional success of his life when the research was published. He knew dogs were smarter than we thought. Now, his and Chaser's legacy lives on with The Chaser Initiative, which his daughter Pilley Bianchi is the Founder and Executive Producer of. They wanted to use the platform that Chaser had developed to reach young kids and teach them about all the valuable lessons we can absorb from dogs and through the idea of 'play' as a tool to learn.

About The Guest - Pilley Bianchi

Pilley Bianchi is a musician and the Founder and Executive Producer of The Chaser Initiative, dedicated to educating young students about the power of play and doing so through dogs specifically. This initiative honors the work of her late father, Dr. John Pilley, who trained their dog Chaser to be "the smartest dog in the world." She is also an award-winning pianist, singer, and composer, who is the Founder & Executive Producer of Bianchi Musica Productions.

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