Pavlov rules

Somewhere over yonder, a distant neighbour has one of those small dogs which bark their heads off at nothing in particular. Delightful little things aren’t they? Even though we’ve never seen it we know it must be a small dog because of that completely deranged note they all inject into every bark. Breeding you see.

Round about five o’clock every day the dog seems to be ejected into the garden because it barks continuously for ten minutes. After which time it seems to be taken in again because the barking stops abruptly and is never resumed until the next ten minute garden ejection comes around.

So our unknown neighbour has probably conditioned the dog to bark continuously while in the garden because the canine curse knows it will be rewarded by being allowed indoors again. Stimulus, response and reinforcement. Or -

By its barking the dog has conditioned our neighbour to observe a strict ten minute rule for the in-garden episodes. Stimulus, response and reinforcement again.

One could also say that other neighbours within earshot have been conditioned to ignore the persistent barking because each episode is only ten minutes long – never more. As a reward, the minor pleasure of sudden silence is probably just sufficient to prevent a chap from rushing round with the coal miner’s pick bequeathed by his wife’s father…   for example.