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                                                                                    WELCOME  TO  MY  AUTHOR  PORTFOLIO

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Among the special recognition days coming up, one stands out. April 11 is National Pet Day. If you miss that because of a busy schedule, wait a few weeks. May is National Pet Month. Who’s a good puppy? Yes you are!

 

While humans have been keeping cats and dogs as companions for thousands of years, pet rocks have only been around since 1975. And chia pets since 1977. Fifty years ago, you could get a pet rock, a portable carrying case (with air holes), and an owner’s manual all for $3.95. Of course, Gary Dahl, the genius behind pet rocks, bought the Mexican beach stones for about a penny each and quickly became a millionaire. But, by 1976, the fad was fading. His later inventions, including the Original Sand Breeding Kit, which let buyers grow their “own desert wasteland,” never really took off. You only get one of those, Gary.

 

Ivan Pavlov reportedly did not have pets in the usual sense, but was famous for his dog, the one the experimental psychologist studied in his St. Petersburg lab. There was not just one dog, though, but over forty. Everyone is familiar with the bell ringing experiment where the dog salivates when a bell is rung since it has been conditioned to associate hearing a bell with feeding time. I am reminded of someone I know who once had a dog that peed on the carpet each time the doorbell rang. But that, my friends, is not science. That is just something a pet owner has to deal with.

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Whereas Pavlov’s dog was not just one dog, Schrodinger’s cat, a less famous animal, was not even one cat. Not even real. Schrodinger’s cat was theoretical, which saves a bundle on tuna and litter. Schrodinger proposed a hypothetical situation where a cat contained in a steel box may or may not be alive, depending on whether or not poisonous gas was released at the direction of  a radiation monitor. Like certain radioactive particles, the existence of a live cat could only be determined by direct observation.

 

As the joke goes, a person walks into a public library and asks the librarian if there is a book about Pavlov’s dogs and Schrodinger’s cat. The librarian responds: It rings a bell, but I’m not sure if it’s here or not. Yes, it’s the sort of joke Sheldon Cooper might find hilarious, and nobody else, like jokes about entropy and quarks. 

 

Although there is a band named Pavlov’s cat there is a reason Pavlov did not perform his experiments with cats. A cat might well associate a ringing bell with suppertime, but it would not give the experimenter the satisfaction of drooling. More likely it would begin to bathe itself and then curl up on a newspaper. Or barf up a hairball on Pavlov’s shoe.

                                                                              

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