during the early rounds of training the researchers must have screwed up and not made the connection between the tone and shock clear enough. The shocks had felt random to the dogs. So instead of making the connection that this was a warning signal, they had learned they had no control. They were helpless. Maybe the pooches weren’t thinking between three hundred and one thousand words a minute like you and I, but they weren’t dumb either: These shocks are going to happen no matter what. Why keep trying? The dogs had learned the concept of futility.
