Pavlov, Dogs and Newibies
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:00 pm
Pavlov gets far too much credit for discovering something that dog owners knew for several hundred or thousand years. He just did it in the laboratory and recorded it. Case in point: Pavlov (known as the very early founder of operant conditioning) rang a bell, fed dogs, repeated often, then rang a bell and noted that the dogs salivated. Marvelous! Not really. Observe your dog as I have observed mine. Pavlov apparently didn’t own a dog but just observed them in the lab.
Consider this: Squirrel is on the bird feeder; tell dog that the squirrel is there; dog looks at me as if she is looking at a new pan. I open the door and again shout squirrel. She runs out, looks, sees squirrel and charges. She runs around hedges giving the squirrel a 15 yard head start. Squirrel jumps and flees – to the far tree and even having a 15-yard head start is just 1 foot ahead as it jumps to the tree and escapes.
More time elapses with both the dog and squirrel learning. Muffet, a 10 lb Chihuahua/Italian greyhound (faster than a squirrel but not a speeding bullet) no longer runs around the shrubs but directly to the elevated bird feeder. Still the squirrel barely escapes by jumping down and fleeing to the nearest tree 20 feet away – not the 100 feet on the first attempt. The squirrel has learned to listen to the opening of the door. No matter how silent I do it the moment the door opens the squirrel is off. Both the dog and the squirrel have learned to respond to sounds; and the dog to a silent “squirrel” or just nodding to the door.
I can just look at the door and Muffet is ready to charge. No longer do I say squirrel or even mouth it. Just look. All of that is conditioning which every Scotland sheepherder observed far before Pavlov was born. If you’ve observed shepherding trials with sheepdogs you know that they sometimes look, long distance, to their handler and with just a hand gesture or nod proceed.
Pavlov gets credit for merely observing something that millions of dog companions had known forever. Those of you who have dogs already know this. This is somewhat like getting credit for observing that new Shopsmith owners logon daily looking for new information but overtime their inquiries abate. Having been the first to publish this information (not the first to observe it) I should go down in Shopsmith history as contributing as much to Shopsmith as Pavlov did to Psychology. Quasimodo did more with ringing his bell than did Pavlov.
Consider this: Squirrel is on the bird feeder; tell dog that the squirrel is there; dog looks at me as if she is looking at a new pan. I open the door and again shout squirrel. She runs out, looks, sees squirrel and charges. She runs around hedges giving the squirrel a 15 yard head start. Squirrel jumps and flees – to the far tree and even having a 15-yard head start is just 1 foot ahead as it jumps to the tree and escapes.
More time elapses with both the dog and squirrel learning. Muffet, a 10 lb Chihuahua/Italian greyhound (faster than a squirrel but not a speeding bullet) no longer runs around the shrubs but directly to the elevated bird feeder. Still the squirrel barely escapes by jumping down and fleeing to the nearest tree 20 feet away – not the 100 feet on the first attempt. The squirrel has learned to listen to the opening of the door. No matter how silent I do it the moment the door opens the squirrel is off. Both the dog and the squirrel have learned to respond to sounds; and the dog to a silent “squirrel” or just nodding to the door.
I can just look at the door and Muffet is ready to charge. No longer do I say squirrel or even mouth it. Just look. All of that is conditioning which every Scotland sheepherder observed far before Pavlov was born. If you’ve observed shepherding trials with sheepdogs you know that they sometimes look, long distance, to their handler and with just a hand gesture or nod proceed.
Pavlov gets credit for merely observing something that millions of dog companions had known forever. Those of you who have dogs already know this. This is somewhat like getting credit for observing that new Shopsmith owners logon daily looking for new information but overtime their inquiries abate. Having been the first to publish this information (not the first to observe it) I should go down in Shopsmith history as contributing as much to Shopsmith as Pavlov did to Psychology. Quasimodo did more with ringing his bell than did Pavlov.
Time for you to start turning some pens and bowls and enjoy what time you have left and not sweat those things you have no control over