About three or four times per year someone writes me asking if I know the names of Pavlov's dogs. I don't know why this question is so popular (perhaps it is some history of psychology teacher's assignment) or why they ask me (I'm afraid I know little more about Pavlov than one gets out of the typical history of psychology text). Nevertheless, I will post the best answer I can concoct (with the help of Roger Thomas of U. Georgia, who tells me he gets the same question from time to time as well).

Roger says he's found that two dogs were named Boy (presumably, English translation) and Zolotisty. He found these names in Pavlov, I. P. (1957). Experimental psychology and other essays. New York: Philosophical Library ("Boy" on p. 320, "Zolotisty" on p. 322). Daniel P. Todes' book, _Pavlov's Physiology Factory_ (2002, Johns Hopkins U. Press) give the names of Druzhok (p. 121), Sultan (p. 121), Zhuchka (p. 121), Tygan (meaning Gypsy, p. 133). Druzhok (meaning "Little Friend"), who was one of the first successful laboratory dogs, is the main topic of all of Chap. 4. At least 16 others died during the surgery or soon thereafter before Druzhok survivied, and before receiving names. I suspect that are many other dog names scattered through Todes' book. The interested person is left to find them for him- or herself.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), June 14, 2002

Answers

Julie Tippett (julie.tippett@sympatico.ca) sent me the following URL for a site that deals extensively with Pavlov's Dogs. I do not know much about its sources or reliability, but it is worth a look for thsoe interested in such matters. http://www.cshl.org/PDogs/index.html

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), February 23, 2003.

[Forwarded for RAJ by cdg.]

The source comes from a Cold Spring Harbor press release about work by CSH neuroscientists Tim Tully and Josh Dubnau: "Pavlov's Flies: Researchers Identify Fruit Fly Memory Mutants Broad Implications Seen for Treating Alzheimer's and Other Human Diseases" [http://www.cshl.org/public/releases/press021703.html]

"In a fascinating and entertaining essay (available on request) that accompanies the published study, Tully describes how in 1992 he traveled to the Pavlov Institute in Koltushi, Russia to find the names of Pavlov's Dogs with the intention of naming his fruit fly memory mutants after the dogs. This despite the fact that at that time, he had few such fly mutants, and had been able to find the name of but one of Pavlov's Dogs, Bierka.

"After several dead ends, and on the final day of his visit, Tully was invited for a private tour of Pavlov's home. There he struck gold when the curator showed him a photo album inside which were photographs of forty of Pavlov's Dogs, along with their Russian names (e.g. Rosa, Mirta, Norka, Trezor, Visgun, Jurka, Jack, John. Photographs and complete list of names is available at http://www.cshl.edu/PDogs/)"

The essay, "Pavlov's Dogs", is on p. R117-R119 of the Feb. 17 issue (v.13 no.4) of _Current Biology_. Some university libraries subscribe to this online (e.g., UCLA does this through ScienceDirect), so you may be able to read the full text of the paper (with photos of 10 of the dogs).

cheers,

Russell Johnson
HISTNEUR-L administrator
rjohnson@library.ucla.edu

-- Russell A. Johnson (rjohnson@library.ucla.edu), February 23, 2003.

it's Tsygan, not Tygan that means gypsy

privet torontovke :)

-- klon scuka (huyasse@clon.vu), August 10, 2004.

http://www.cshl.org/PDogs/

Names and information of all his dogs.

-- S Farrar (sfarrar@a-1tremendous.com), October 15, 2004.

does any one know what happened to the dogs after the test?

-- ryan flemister (ryanflemister@yahoo.com), March 10, 2005.