Pavlov is widely acclaimed in the behaviourist literature for his work in Classical conditioning. We have details on his life; where he was born, where he lived and where he died. The biographical details available are extensive; he was the eldest of eleven children, entered the seminary upon graduating from school, left to pursue a degree in science in the university of St Petersburg, his final year project on pancreatic nerves earning him a University award. We know a lot about him and his prestigious career, his life, and his eventual death in 1936 from double pneumonia.

But what happened to his dogs? As the animal participants they don’t enjoy the same acclaim except by association. As far as science is concerned they merely vessels for exhibiting the desired behaviour and are otherwise not important. It turns out their lives were far less prestigious, their end even more so. They were eaten. Yes, Pavlov’s dogs were eaten during the siege of Leningrad.

Time for a little history. The siege of Leningrad started on the 2nd of September 1941 and didn’t lift until January 27th, 1944. Capturing this city was a high priority for the German Army due to its status as the former capital of Russia and the seat of the Russian revolution and the location of numerous industrial centers and arms factories in and around the city. Hitler’s ultimate goal once the city was surrounded was to ignore all surrender requests and raze the city to the ground. Lines of communication and resupply to the city were cut off and the siege began with the completion of this encirclement. Thus began one of the longest and most destructive sieges in recorded history. The Germans bombed the grain stores in the city, essentially stopping the citizenry from rationing effectively. Rationing only got tougher as the siege wore on; each citizen was given a daily ration of a thin slice of bread, made mostly with bomb-charred grain and sawdust. All cats, rats and mice were gone by the middle of the first winter. Most trees in city parks were chopped down for firewood. People were dropping dead in the middle of the street and there were no resources to remove all the corpses. Cannibalism became such an issue that the Leningrad Police created a special anti-cannibalism unit. The whole time, the city was continuously shelled by German artillery stationed right outside city borders.

Pavlov’s work with dogs had been done in the Leningrad Physiological institute but with the advent of the siege and the ever decreasing food rations, pets, zoo animals and even working animals were now harvested for food. And Pavlov’s dogs were no exception, despite their status. Sadly, they fell victim to the starving citizenry as staff of the institute, including some of the researchers who had worked with Pavlov and the dogs (Bierka, Milkah, Beck, Toi, Ruslan and Murashka to name a few), resorted to eating the poor creatures out of desperation.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment. Half a million civilian victims of the siege are buried in mass graves in Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetary. We know a great deal about the human toll and the loss of human life in the siege but it’s only fairly recently we’re learning about the creatures of the siege.

Tim Tully has written an interesting book about his intensive and difficult search for the names of Pavlov’s dogs. Really interesting and worth the read http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982203000666