Pavlov's Flood

TW: Animal suffering described.

Pavlov is known for his discovery of classical conditioning using a bell, dogs, and food—but what if I told you that Pavlov discovered a more monumental aspect of dog behavior by accident?

In 1924, the lab where Pavlov kept his dogs flooded. The dogs were locked in their cages, unable to escape while the icy water rose. They fought for their lives as their bodies told them to escape, but their reality kept them immobile and terrified.

Take a moment to think about what that must have been like.

Pavlov’s assistants made it to the lab in time to save the dogs from death, but the damage was done. The dogs were physically uninjured, but so traumatized that they no longer salivated at the ringing bell.

They had no curiosity about their surroundings.

They stopped engaging with the handlers they had strong bonds with.

They stopped playing with each other.

They would not eat.

They were utterly shutdown.

Even with the removal of immediate danger, the dogs remained in a constant state of sheer panic. Pavlov noted that they were startled at slight changes in the environment. Some dogs sat in the corner of their cages shaking, while others lashed out at their handlers.

The dogs’ physiology was measured, and Pavlov concluded that the two conflicting physical impulses of being trapped in a cage while their bodies told them to escape in the face of life-threatening danger, created a total breakdown in their equilibrium.

After three days of starvation and no change, Pavlov stayed in the room with the dogs during the experiments. This led the dogs to begin eating again. He concluded that companionship and connection was the quickest, effective and most reliable way to recover from stress.

Pavlov spent the rest of his life putting dogs in stressful situations in order to study the many aspects of how to reverse the shutdown behavior. His studies were not humane, and I am heartbroken thinking about how his dogs suffered. But I think it’s a mistake to throw out the information, as those dogs gave us some incredible insights into canine trauma and recovery. I’m forever grateful to them.

This story illustrates precisely:

How dogs FEEL is inextricably linked to how they behave.

In the name of Pavlov’s dogs, let’s:

STOP commanding dogs into obeying a certain set of criteria (sit/down/stay/place) that has little to do with their actual behavioral health.

Instead, let’s:

START meeting their innate needs first, then teaching and treating them as the complex, emotional beings that they are.

Graphic ID: A photo of a sad looking multi-colored long haired dog inside of a cage with words that read "You know about Pavlov's Bell, but have you heard about his Flood?"

Sources: The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.; Semantic Scholar, Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex