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Pavlovian training works the other way around. The conditioning you're talking about teaches a dog about the consequences of its actions and is totally legitimate. Knowing what happens when you do X thing is practically the definition of learning.
What I'm talking about works backwards. To train a dog to sit using this technique, you say "Sit," then yank on the dog's choke chain. Then you say "sit" and yank on the chain. Pretty soon the dog figures out "Sit" means he's about to be choked and will panic every time you say it. Eventually, in the course of his panicking, he will happen to sit, and when he does, you DON'T yank the chain. The dog learns, "In order to avoid getting choked, I have to sit" and is based on the particular experiment where a dog in a harness was hooked up to a machine where he would receive an electric shock every time a bell went off, unless, in the course of thrashing around in terror, he raised his head and touched a metal plate to complete the circuit and prevent the shock. It is the exact opposite of the well-known "food bell" and fans of Pavlov try to pretend it didn't happen.
The problem with this should be obvious, but in case it isn't, I'll explain: Dogs are capable of guided learning and mimicking, and can be shown what to do. This training method neglects that fact and uses pain to force the animal to figure it out on his own. If we are capable of teaching a dog through guidance and rewards, but instead choose to teach using fear and pain, I'd say that makes us cruel, wouldn't you?
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