Pavlov's Dogs

Ivan P. Pavlov is the scientist who discovered, quite accidentally, that the dogs he was working with were learning to make associations with different stimuli that were theoretically not associated.

Pavlov was interested in how reflexes work and was studying salivary reflexes in dogs. He began to observe that as soon as the dogs were placed in the experimental environment they would salivate; when the person who actually bought the food to them appeared they salivated profusely. The dogs had learned to associate the room and food server with the food, and they responded as they would to the food itself.

Pet owners live with the result of classical conditioning every day. Do you have to call your dog when he/she hears the sound of the treat tin being opened?