We’ve had our border collie Holly for six months and the chickens for nearly three. Despite Holly’s best efforts I still have four chickens, but Holly is intensely jealous of any attention I give them. A routine has settled into our household that I can only think of as a Pavlov chain reaction.
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist famous for doing unpleasant things to dogs in order to study their learning behaviour. He found that if dogs were given a stimuli – such as a ringing bell – with food, they would anticipate the food when presented with that stimuli, even if no food was present. We know this today as Classical Conditioning.
Our household fun unfolds thus:
- I approach the front door.
- Holly jumps up to the window barking madly.
- The chickens hear Holly and run to the front door.
- I open the front door and go outside to feed the chickens.
First Holly learned that if I headed towards the front door I was probably going to give the chickens some attention. Then the chickens learnt that if Holly was barking, the front door was probably going to open. So Holly barks more and the chickens run faster. Sometimes in our house it feels like a chemistry experiment is about to get explosive.