Although far from the spotlight that was shone upon Pavlov’s dog, Pavlov’s cat did her part in advancing Ivan Pavlov’s work.

The cat, a Russian Blue named Sasha, belonged to Pavlov’s wife but insisted on staying close to Pavlov throughout the day. Each day Pavlov tried to maintain an intense focus on his work but could not because of the cat’s incessant purring and clawing. Then one morning the thought struck him that he should include his cat in his experiments.

Pavlov was in the middle of conducting an experiment concerning electricity efficiency. For one such experiment, he stuck his cat in a prototype dryer and noted the cat’s increased heart rate, dilated pupils, and extreme fluffiness. The next day Pavlov conducted an experiment on the feline dizziness threshold. After strapping the cat to a turntable and turning it on, he found that the Russian Blue could withstand two minutes at 75 RPM.

Pavlov’s cat survived the psychologist’s experiments, but sadly his marriage did not. Mrs. Pavlov left him, but fortunately for Pavlov and the science world, she left behind the cat.