Refinement Database

Database on Refinement of Housing, Husbandry, Care, and Use of Animals in Research

This database, created in 2000, is updated every four months with newly published scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research.

Tips for using the database:

  • This landing page displays all of the publications in the database.
  • Use the drop-down menus to filter these publications by Animal Type, Setting, and/or Topic.
  • Clicking on a parent category (e.g., Rodent) will include publications relating to all the items in that category (e.g., Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, etc.).
  • You may also add a keyword to further narrow your search.
  • Please note that at this time, only publications dated 2010 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Animal Type and Topic, and only publications dated 2020 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Setting. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Baqueiro-Espinosa, U., Donnelly, P., McEvoy, V. et al. 2024. The links between positive human interaction and maternal behaviour and welfare of commercial breeding dams (Canis familiaris). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 270, 106147.

In dogs, maternal behaviour plays an essential role in offspring survival and can influence the development and behaviour of the neonate later in life. We investigated the effect of prepartum enrichment on maternal behaviour and...

Kitchenham, L., MacLellan, A., Paletta, P. et al. 2024. Do housing-induced changes in brain activity cause stereotypic behaviours in laboratory mice? Behavioural Brain Research 462, 114862.

Abnormal repetitive stereotypic behaviours (SBs) (e.g. pacing, body-rocking) are common in animals with poor welfare (e.g. socially isolated/in barren housing). But how (or even whether) poor housing alters animals’ brains to induce SBs remains uncertain...

Herlofson, E. A. G., Tavola, F., Engdahl, K. S. et al. 2023. Evaluation of primary wound healing and potential complications after perioperative infiltration with lidocaine without adrenaline in surgical incisions in dogs and cats. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 65(1), 21.

Pre-emptive local analgesia with the use of lidocaine is practised increasingly in veterinary medicine as part of applied multimodal analgesia, despite its controversial impact on wound healing. The purpose of this prospective, randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled...

Marks, C. A., Allen, L., Lindeberg, H. 2023. Non-lethal dose-response models replace lethal bioassays for predicting the hazard of para-animopropiophenone to Australian wildlife. Animals 13(3), 472.

Para-aminopropiophenone (PAPP) is a potent methaemoglobin (MetHb) forming agent used for the lethal control of exotic carnivores and mustelids. To assess the sensitivity of Australian wildlife to PAPP we developed an in vivo assay that...

Silva-Reis, R., Faustino-Rocha, A. I., Silva, J. et al. 2023. Studying and analyzing humane endpoints in the fructose-fed and streptozotocin-injected rat model of diabetes. Animals 13(8), 1397.

This work aimed to define a humane endpoint scoring system able to objectively identify signs of animal suffering in a rat model of type 2 diabetes. Sprague-Dawley male rats were divided into control and induced...

Warwick, C., Pilny, A., Steedman, C. et al. 2023. Mobile zoos and other itinerant animal handling events: Current status and recommendations for future policies. Animals 13(2), 214.

Mobile zoos are events in which non-domesticated (exotic) and domesticated species are transported to venues such as schools, hospitals, parties, and community centres, for the purposes of education, entertainment, or social and therapeutic assistance. We...

Williams, E., Hunton, V., Hosey, G. et al. 2023. The impact of visitors on non-primate species in zoos: A quantitative review. Animals 13(7), 1178.

Visitors are a prominent feature in the lives of zoo animals, and their presence can cause a range of impacts on zoo animals (typically classed as positive, negative or neutral impacts), commonly referred to as...

Wolter, A., Bucher, C. H., Kurmies, S. et al. 2023. A buprenorphine depot formulation provides effective sustained post-surgical analgesia for 72 h in mouse femoral fracture models. Scientific Reports 13(1), 3824.

Adequate pain management is essential for ethical and scientific reasons in animal experiments and should completely cover the period of expected pain without the need for frequent re-application. However, current depot formulations of Buprenorphine are...

Baqueiro-Espinosa, U., Lo, T. H., Hunter, R. et al. 2023. Positive human interaction improves welfare in commercial breeding dogs: Evidence from attention bias and human sociability tests. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 262, 105904.

Intensive breeding practices found in large scale Commercial Breeding Establishments (CBEs) raise significant concerns about breeding dam welfare. Large-scale CBE dams spend most of their reproductive lives confined to kennels, with limited access to enriching...

Bertin, A., Mulot, B., Nowak, R. et al. 2023. Captive blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) show facial indicators of positive affect when reunited with their caregiver. Behavioural Processes 206, 104833.

In mammals, human-animal bonding is recognized as a source of positive affect for companion or farm animals. Because this remains unexplored in birds, we investigated captive parrots’ perspective of the human-animal relationship. We used a...

Baskir, E., Parsons, A., Elden, M. et al. 2023. Quantifying acute behavioral reactions of Bali mynas (Leucopsar rothschildi) to environmental and progressively challenging enrichment. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 4(1), 176–190.

Animals use specific behaviors and skills to overcome challenges and access resources. Environmental enrichment is provided to animals in human care to both promote species-appropriate behaviors and reduce undesired behaviors. Feather pecking in birds is...

Gunter, L. M., Blade, E. M., Gilchrist, R. J. et al. 2023. The influence of brief outing and temporary fostering programs on shelter dog welfare. Animals 13(22), 3528.

Human interaction is one of the most consistently effective interventions that can improve the welfare of shelter-living dogs. Time out of the kennel with a person has been shown to reduce physiological measures of stress...

Riemer, S. 2023. Therapy and prevention of noise fears in dogs—A review of the current evidence for practitioners. Animals 13(23), 3664.

Noise fears represent the most common behavioural problem in dogs. This manuscript provides an overview of diverse approaches for alleviating fear of noises in dogs and the supporting evidence. In the treatment of noise fears...

Shanazz, K., Nalloor, R., Vazdarjanova, A. 2023. A mild stressor induces short-term anxiety and long-term phenotypic changes in trauma-related behavior in female rats. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.

IntroductionAnxiety and anxiety-influenced disorders are sexually dimorphic with women being disproportionately affected compared to men. Given the increased prevalence in women and the documented differences in anxiety and trauma behavior between male and female rats...

Trujanovic, R., Rohrbach, H. 2023. Ultrasound-guided block of the sciatic and the femoral nerves in rabbits—A descriptive anatomical study. Animals 13(14), 2393.

The rabbit is a popular animal model for human biomechanical research involving surgery on the hind limb. Mortality is higher in rabbits when undergoing general anesthesia compared to dogs and cats. Moreover, due to their...

van Zeeland, Y. R. A., Schoemaker, N. J., Lumeij, J. T. 2023. Contrafreeloading indicating the behavioural need to forage in healthy and feather damaging Grey parrots. Animals 13(16), 2635.

Contrafreeloading (CFL) is a concept that describes the preference of an animal to work for food even when identical food is freely available, and reflects an intrinsic motivation to engage in foraging-related activities. However, altered...

Benato, L., Murrell, J., Rooney, N. 2023. Determining a cut-off point for intervention analgesia in rabbits using the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale. Veterinary Record 193(5), e2995.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine the threshold of the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale (BRPS) indicating the need for intervention analgesia. Methods: Fourteen members of veterinary staff were recruited to rate rabbits...

Brake, M. E., Russ, B. P., Gansebom, S. et al. 2023. Effects of extended-release buprenorphine on mouse models of influenza. Comparative Medicine 73(6), 466–473.

Mice are widely used as small animal models for influenza infection and immunization studies because of their susceptibility to many strains of influenza, obvious clinical signs of infection, and ease of handling. Analgesia is rarely...

Ferguson, L. T., Rashied, A. A., Liang, Z. et al. 2023. A novel scoring system for humane endpoints in mice with cecal ligation and puncture-induced sepsis. Comparative Medicine 73(6), 446–460.

Animal-based research is essential to the study of sepsis pathophysiology, diagnostics, and therapeutics. However, animal models of sepsis are often associated with high mortality because of the difficulty in predicting imminent death based on premortem...

Lopez-Echeverria, G., Alamaw, E., Gorman, G. et al. 2023. Comparing three formulations of buprenorphine in an incisional pain model in mice. JAALAS 62(6), 531–537.

This study compared the therapeutic effects in mice of 3 different formulations of buprenorphine. These formulations were standard buprenorphine hydrochloride (Bup-HCL) and 2 different extended-release buprenorphine formulations (Bup-ER and Ethiqa-XR [Bup-XR]). Drugs were evaluated based...

Mahdavi, I., Abdi-Hachesoo, B., Ansari-Lari, M. et al. 2023. Prevalence and risk factors of feather damaging behavior in companion parrots: A cross-sectional study in Iran. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 266, 106028.

A cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of feather damaging behavior (FDB) and evaluate the related risk factors among companion psittacine birds in Iran. For data collection, a structured questionnaire was prepared and...

McKenna, B. A., Weaver, H. L., Kim, J. et al. 2023. A pharmacokinetic and analgesic efficacy study of carprofen in female CD1 mice. JAALAS 62(6), 545–552.

The minimization of pain in research animals is a scientific and ethical necessity. Carprofen is commonly used for pain management in mice; however, some data suggest that the standard dosage of 5 mg/kg may not...

Mitin, H., Idrus, Z., Meng, G. Y. et al. 2023. Effects of positive human contact on fear and physiological stress responses in Pekin ducks (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) subjected to crating and transport. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 269, 106108.

A growing body of research shows that farm animals frequently seek and enjoy human interaction. However, there is a lack of information on how positive human contact affects ducks’ stress and fear responses. An experiment...

Illario, J. A., Osborn, K. G., Garcia, A. V. et al. 2023. Comparative pharmacokinetics and injection site histopathology in nude mice treated with long-acting buprenorphine formulations. JAALAS 62(2), 147–152.

Two long-acting formulations of buprenorphine are commercially available as analgesics for rodents. However, these drugs have not yet been studied in nude mice. We sought to investigate whether the manufacturer-recommended or labeled mouse doses of...

Kim, J., Cannon, B. A., Freeman, L. E. et al. 2023. High-dose meloxicam provides improved analgesia in female CD1 mice: A pharmacokinetic and efficacy study. JAALAS 62(1), 74–80.

Meloxicam is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory analgesic drug that is often used in mice. However, doses of 1 to 5 mg/kg given twice daily were recently reported to provide inadequate analgesia. Some studies suggest that doses...