Sidetracked Charley

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...

B.F.Skinner invented the Skinner box which is an operant conditioning chamber. An operant conditioning chamber permits experimenters to study behavior conditioning (training) by teaching a subject animal to perform certain actions (like pressing a lever) in response to specific stimuli, like a light or sound signal. When the subject correctly performs the behavior, the chamber mechanism delivers food or another reward. In some cases, the mechanism delivers a punishment for incorrect or missing responses. With this apparatus, experimenters perform studies in conditioning and training through reward/punishment mechanisms. I have decided that life is a malfunctioning Skinner box. When an operant conditioning chamber malfunctions and the reward and punishment are scrambled for a specific behavior the test subject just goes to a corner and shivers. I am there folks. I am trying to keep my eye on the prize as it were but I am unsure if I will get shocked if I dare reach for it. I...