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. 
Golledge, H., Richardson, C. (Eds.) 2024. The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other Research Animals (9th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. 1040 p.

The latest edition of the seminal reference on the care and management of laboratory and research animals. The newly revised ninth edition of The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other...

Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Brando, S., Vitale, A., Bacon, M. 2023. Promoting good nonhuman primate welfare outside regular working hours. Animals 13(8), 1423.

Promoting good primate welfare outside of daylight hours is an important task. The responsibility to provide a complex environment and environmental enrichment is an essential element of primate wellbeing programs that should be approached from...

Corsetti, S., Natoli, E., Palme, R. et al. 2023. Instraspecific interactions decrease stress affecting welfare in shelter dogs: A comparison of four different housing conditions. Animals 13(11), 1828.

Shelters are stressful environments for domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). Evaluating dogs’ welfare is crucial to improve their life condition and to promote a better management of shelters. We aimed at verifying which variables improved welfare...

Łapiński, S., Niedbała, P., Markowska, K. et al. 2023. The effects of age, size, and cage complexity on the behaviour of farmed female chinchillas (Chinchilla lanigera). Scientific Reports 13(1), 6108.

Even though chinchillas have been farmed for a century, there are not many studies concerning their behaviour in captivity or their optimal housing conditions, both of which are important factors in the assessment of their...

Bradley, H. S., Craig, M. D., Tomlinson, S. et al. 2023. Ecological considerations when designing mitigation translocations: An Australian reptile case study. Animals 13(16), 2594.

Translocation science has made considerable progress over the last two decades; however, reptile translocations still frequently fail around the world. Major knowledge gaps surround the basic ecology of reptile species, including basic factors such as...

Elwood, R. W. 2023. Behavioural indicators of pain and suffering in arthropods and might pain bite back? Animals 13(16), 2602.

Pain in response to tissue damage functions to change behaviour so that further damage is minimised whereas healing and survival are promoted. This paper focuses on the behavioural criteria that match the function to ask...

Jahn, K., Ley, J., DePorter, T. et al. 2023. How well do dogs cope with air travel? An owner-reported survey study. Animals 13(19), 3093.

It is estimated that 2 million domestic animals travel on commercial flights every year in the US alone and that dogs make up 58% of pets travelling worldwide. There has been little research on the...

Krönke, F., Xu, L. 2023. Sensory stimulation as a means of sustained enhancement of well-being in leopard geckos, Eublepharis macularius (Eublepharidae, Squamata). Animals 13(23), 3595.

Although the private keeping of reptiles has boomed in most western countries since the millennium, studies dealing with the recognition and promotion of welfare in these reptiles seem to represent a blind spot of scientific...

Parnes, S. C., Mallikarjun, A., Ramos, M. T. et al. 2023. A randomized cross-over study comparing cooling methods for exercise-induced hyperthermia in working dogs in training. Animals 13(23), 3673.

Working dogs are at a high risk of canine non-pyrogenic hyperthermia, a life-threatening condition that can occur due to physical exertion or environmental factors that inhibit dogs’ ability to cool themselves. Two frequently recommended cooling...

Szabo, B., Ringler, E. 2023. Fear of the new? Geckos hesitate to attack novel prey, feed near objects and enter a novel space. Animal Cognition 26(2), 537–549.

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is an ecologically important response which enables animals to avoid potentially harmful situations. Neophobia is a cognitive process by which individuals distinguish novelty from familiarity. In this study, we aimed...

Darbyshire, A., Osborne, A., Jackson, G. et al. 2023. The Chinchilla Consortium: Standardizing health and husbandry. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 11(2) (March/April), 22-27.

Although chinchillas (Chinchilla lanigera, C. chinchilla) are categorized as a USDA-covered species, little information and guidance is available with regard to appropriate husbandry in a research setting. Here, the Consortium offers advice on standardized care...

Alizadeh, E. A., Graf, K., Schiwon, J. et al. 2023. Thirty years of telemetry-based data acquisition for cardiovascular drug safety evaluation: Applications and optimization. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 122, 107279.

Conducting safety evaluations of new drugs using conscious animals has been a specialty of our working group for thirty years. In this article, we review the various technical challenges and solutions dealt with over the...

Cuglovici, D. A. 2023. What can associations between emotional states and management-based measures teach us about shelter dogs’ welfare? Journal of Veterinary Behavior 69–70, 32–38.

It is crucial to understand the effect of living in a shelter on dog’s well-being. We hypothesized that mental states may indicate the presence of environmental stressors. The objective of this study was to determine...

Martin, A. L., Walthers, C. M., Pattillo, M. J. et al. 2023. Impact of visual barrier removal on the behavior of shelter-housed dogs. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 26(4), 596–606.

With millions of dogs housed in shelters each year, it is important to consider how the shelter environment impacts welfare. Social isolation and a lack of control over the environment can negatively impact wellbeing. However...

Mercier, P., Honeckman, L., Jokela, F. et al. 2023. Using standardized scales to assess fear at veterinary visits: Intra- and inter-rater reliability. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 62, 12–17.

Behavioral, emotional, and physical signs of distress are increasingly recognized in veterinary patients during routine care. Fear and distress are humane and welfare concerns themselves, but such behavior may also result in deferred veterinary care...

Cobb, M. L., Carter, A., Lill, A. et al. 2022. Perceived importance of specific kennel management practices for the provision of canine welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 249, 105591.

There is public interest for the welfare of dogs that spend at least part of their lives housed in kennel facilities, such as working, shelter and sporting dogs. The impacts of living in environments that...

Barton, J. C., Didier, M. D., Silvestrini, P. et al. 2022. A noninvasive method of temperature measurement using a noncontact handheld infrared thermometer fails to correlate with rectal temperature in dogs and cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 260(7), 752-757.

OBJECTIVE: To perform a retrospective, multicenter observational study that compares the agreement of rectal temperature with the temperature measured with noncontact infrared thermometer (NCIT) in a population of dogs and cats. ANIMALS: 168 dogs and...

van der Laan, J. E., Vinke, C. M., Arndt, S. S. 2022. Evaluation of hair cortisol as an indicator of long-term stress responses in dogs in an animal shelter and after subsequent adoption. Scientific Reports 12(1), 5117.

Shelter dogs are exposed to a variety of stressors. Among non-invasive techniques, hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is suggested an easy to collect biomarker for giving insight into long-term stress responses. We evaluated HCC as an...

van der Laan, J. E., Vinke, C. M., Arndt, S. S. 2022. Evaluation of hair cortisol as an indicator of long-term stress responses in dogs in an animal shelter and after subsequent adoption. Scientific Reports 12(1), 5117.

Shelter dogs are exposed to a variety of stressors. Among non-invasive techniques, hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is suggested an easy to collect biomarker for giving insight into long-term stress responses. We evaluated HCC as an...

Reicher, V., Bálint, A., Újváry, D. et al.2022. Non-invasive sleep EEG measurement in hand raised wolves. Scientific Reports 12(1), 9792.

Sleep research greatly benefits from comparative studies to understand the underlying physiological and environmental factors affecting the different features of sleep, also informing us about the possible evolutionary changes shaping them. Recently, the domestic dog...

Hamlaoui, A., Keeling, L., Burman, O. et al. 2022. Investigating attentional scope as a novel indicator of emotional state in animals. Scientific Reports 12(1), 17452.

In humans, contrasting emotional states can lead to a broadening or narrowing of attentional scope. Whether this is also the case in animals has yet to be investigated. If confirmed, measurement of attentional scope has...

Fink, L. B., Mukobi, A., Gruber, L. et al. 2022. Longitudinal analysis of variability in fecal glucocorticoid metabolite concentrations in three orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus and Pongo pygmaeus abelii) before, during, and after transition from a regular habitat environment to temporary housing in indoor holding facilities. Animals 12(23), 3303.

Considerable research has been conducted on the effects of inter-institutional transfers, but far less consideration has been given to intra-institutional transfers and extended housing in off-habitat holding. On 15 May 2018, The Oregon Zoo’s orangutans...

Wilson, C. H., Wyeth, R. C., Spicer, J. I. et al. 2022. Effect of animal stocking density and habitat enrichment on survival and vitality of wild green shore crabs, Carcinus maenas, maintained in the laboratory. Animals 12(21), 2970.

The wide geographic distribution, large size and ease of capture has led to decapod crustaceans being used extensively in laboratory experiments. Recently in the United Kingdom decapod crustaceans were listed as sentient beings, resulting in...

Liew, K.-S., Tan, K., Liew, H. J. et al. 2022. Responses of purple mud crab (Scylla tranquebarica) to various saccharide solutions and the saccharide-coated pelleted feeds. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 257, 105793.

Mud crabs (Scylla spp.) are economically important portunid species for aquaculture in many countries across the Indo-Pacific region. However, there is still no commercial species-specific formulated feed available for mud crabs, and mud crabs generally...