Every child’s dream is to get a dog for Christmas, and that’s precisely what junior Henry Cheney woke up to five years ago. Monty, a medium-sized Cavachon dog, has brought some interesting experiences to Cheney’s life.

“He’s really stupid,” he said. “But as I talk with other dog owners, it seems like that’s a common trend.”

While Monty may not be the smartest dog out there, he has been well-trained using Ivan Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning, in which animals learn to associate a certain stimulus or action and respond accordingly. Pavlov’s experiment started when he noticed that his dogs started drooling whenever they heard or saw the assistant who usually brought them food.

Monty’s behavior echoes Pavlov’s discovery in terms of his bathroom habits.

“Every time he needs to go to the bathroom, he rings a bell and he goes outside,” Cheney said. “He gets kind of upset when that doesn’t happen.”

Ringing bells isn’t Monty’s only routine.

“Every morning when we leave the house, we have to lock him up in the kitchen. We give him a command and he comes to the kitchen. Then we give him a treat because he’s sad that we’re leaving,” Cheney said.

But sometimes, this process goes wrong.

“One time I just tossed the treat to him and it hit his head. It hit his skull and made a noise, and he thought that the noise that was made was actually someone knocking on the door,” he said.

Naturally, Monty went over to see who was at the door instead of remaining in the kitchen.

Despite his goofy shortcomings, Cheney knows that Monty is a good dog.

“He actually makes me happy all the time. Let the record show that he’s awesome,” Cheney said.