Barrier Frustration

I provide a doggie vacay service at my home, and lately I have encountered barrier frustration and aggression at the gate. Dogs develop frustration when something holds them back from interacting with a certain stimuli in the environment like the dog on the other side of the gate.
Or a leash, a fence, a tether, a baby gate, being in a car. . . really any type of barrier or restraint. The frustration shows itself in a whole range of "inappropriate" behavior.

Surely this is not just a thing with are canine friends. Other animals in cages like at zoos? Or humans in cages like at our southern border? Or prisons? I googled. And if you are to look at the results you would assume it is just dogs. And just real and solid barriers like gates.

Not willing to let it go because I could see equivalent human responses if not what they were perceiving as a barrier. Maybe in humans it is called something else like cabin fever? Living in the mountains I am aware of cabin fever which usually occurs in the winter when snow prevents one from easily getting out and over the mountain. But even people in the plains suffer from cabin fever when the blizzard goes on for days. And even with are wonderfully appointed cabins now with windows to the world through the internet, television, and phones. Still there was a time this May when a severe snow storm brought down the power grid and the internet and the cell phone towers.

And maybe the barrier is not always solid like three feet of snow or even always clearly definable like oppression or discrimination or bias or the glass ceilings. And maybe the manifestation of the frustration isn't always violence like riots and aggression to others. Maybe being human we sometimes just sit in the corner and suck our thumbs. Or become increasingly depressed and unsatisfied with our toys.

Richard Adams in his book Watership Down describes rabbit when they are frozen in the headlights as they are trying to cross the road as tharned.  It is an apt word. And daily it defines my response to the frustration of not being able to get Trump out of the White House. There are days I feel like a dog running back and forth along the length of the fence looking for a magical opening to this barrier. And it is never there. But that does not mean I will stop looking because the alternative is to just stand and snarl and snap at the air closing in around me. Anything but losing all hope and shaking and whimpering in the corner of my perceived cell like a cat in a Skinner Box.