Without their fathers’ surnames there is zero chance the mixmatched catchweight contest would take placeBack in his pomp as an era-defining, generational dog-torturer, the great Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov did an interesting experiment with shapes. This involved showing a dog called Vampire a combination of circles and ovals. Circles meant he was about to be fed. Ovals meant no food and possibly, maybe, at a push, being electrocuted.Before long Vampire was showing the familiar conditioned response, salivating when he saw a circle, shying away from the oval. At which point Pavlov began to show him shapes that were weirdly pitched between the two, not quite an oval, not quite a circle, half a food promise, half something else, until eventually Vampire snapped, yelping and running around in circles, unable to interpret the truth of the thing in front of him. So, top work there everyone. Another dog successfully confused. Continue reading...