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. 
Morrin, Y. 2020. No bullies allowed! Co-operative feeding as a means to enhance the welfare of 'sub-ordinates'. RATEL (Journal of the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers) 47(1), 18-19.

This article describes a protocol for training capuchins for co-operative feeding. Three months after beginning the training, the two dominant individuals consistently stay stationed, calmly focused, and the keeper is able to hand the subordinate...

Reinhardt, V. (ed.) 2020. It’s Okay to Cry - Discussions by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum [LAREF], Volume V. Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC.

This is the 5th volume of selected discussions that took place on the electronic Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum between February 2016 and December 2019. The forum was created in October 2002; it allows...

Cloutier Barbour, C., Danforth, M. D., Murphy, H. et al. 2020. Monitoring great ape heart health through innovative electrocardiogram technology: Training methodologies and welfare implications. Zoo Biology 39(6), 443-447.

Assessing and treating cardiovascular disease (or heart disease) is a growing concern for institutions housing great apes, as it is a major cause of mortality in all four taxa managed in human care. As part...

Dorey, N. R., Blandina, A., Udell, M. A. R. 2020. Clicker training does not enhance learning in mixed-breed shelter puppies (Canis familiaris). Journal of Veterinary Behavior 39, 57-63.

Clicker training has been a popular form of training for decades and is used in zoos, aquariums, and shelters. Only a handful of studies have investigated the efficacy of the clicker-training method itself despite its...

Bessa Ferreira, V. H., De Paiva Fonseca, E., Chagas, Correia Santos Das, A. C. et al. 2020. Personality traits modulate stress responses after enclosure change of captive capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 232, 105111.

Husbandry procedures may cause behavioral and physiological changes to animals living in captivity. However, an individual’s reaction is not uniform and may be related to different coping strategies. In this study, we analyzed whether and...

Vieira de Castro, A. C., Fuchs, D., Morello, G. M. et al. 2020. Does training method matter? Evidence for the negative impact of aversive-based methods on companion dog welfare. PLOS ONE 15(12), e0225023.

Dog training methods range broadly from those using mostly positive punishment and negative reinforcement (aversive-based) to those using primarily positive reinforcement (reward-based). Although aversive-based training has been strongly criticized for negatively affecting dog welfare, there...

Coventry, C. 2020. Positive reinforcement training as physiotherapy for a brown capuchin (Sapajus apella). RATEL (Journal of the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers) 47(2), 16-17.

Physiotherapy can be used to treat an animal following surgery, to help correcting abnormal gait and for treating tendon, bone or ligament damage. […] Of course, an animal can’t just be given a set of...

Estien, C., O’Connell, C., Francis, X. et al. 2020. Temporary behavioral responses to playbacks by a pest parrot and implications for management. Animal Behavior and Cognition 9(4), 363–384.

Human-wildlife interactions continue to increase due to anthropogenic disturbances, with some interactions resulting in conflict. Leveraging a taxa’s bias for a particular sensory cue is a promising management avenue for reducing the potential and realized...

Butler, J. L., Kennerley, S. W. 2019. Mymou: A low-cost, wireless touchscreen system for automated training of nonhuman primates. Behaviour Research Methods 51, 2559–2572.

Training nonhuman primates (NHPs) to perform cognitive tasks is essential for many neuroscientific investigations, yet laboratory training is a time-consuming process with inherent limitations. Habituating NHPs to the laboratory staff and experimental equipment can take...

Neal Webb, S. J., Hau, J., Schapiro, S. J. et al. 2019. Relationships between captive chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) welfare and voluntary participation in behavioural studies. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 214, 102-109.

Voluntary participation in behavioural studies offers several scientific, management, and welfare benefits to non-human primates (NHPs). Aside from the scientific benefit of increased understanding of NHP cognition, sociality, and behaviour derived from noninvasive behavioural studies...

Bloomsmith, M. A., Clay, A. W., Lambeth, S. P. et al. 2019. Survey of behavioral indices of welfare in research chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the United States. JAALAS 58(2), 160-177.

Chimpanzees demand specialized housing and care and the highest degree of attention to animal welfare. The current project used a survey method to collate information on chimpanzee housing and behavioral indices of welfare across all...

Lensen, C. M. M., Moons, C. P. H., Diederich, C. 2015. Saliva sampling in dogs: How to select the most appropriate procedure for your study. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 10(6), 504-512.

Saliva sampling is an easy, noninvasive method to assess short-term physiological changes, and as such is a valuable addition to behavioral studies in dogs. Different methods for collecting saliva samples in dogs have been reported...

Packer, R. M. A., Davies, A. M., Volk, H. A. 2019. What can we learn from the hair of the dog? Complex effects of endogenous and exogenous stressors on canine hair cortisol. PLOS ONE 14(5), e0216000.

Hair is an emerging biological matrix in which to measure chronic HPA axis activity, offering a longer term view into an animal’s life. We explored effects of exogenous (e.g. lifestyle, medications, social environment) and endogenous...

Riemer, S., Ellis, S. L. H., Thompson, H. et al. 2018. Reinforcer effectiveness in dogs—The influence of quantity and quality. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 206, 87-93.

Reinforcer effectiveness refers to the reinforcer’s ability to control the subject’s target behaviour and is therefore critical to training success. Yet animals’ preferences, and the effectiveness of different rewards to function as reinforcers, are often...

Lush, J., Ijichi, C. 2018. A preliminary investigation into personality and pain in dogs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 24, 62-68.

Adherence to basic animal welfare standards involves effective monitoring and control of pain, especially in a veterinary setting. Assessment relies on behavioral and physiological indicators. However, individual differences in physiology mediate consistent individual differences in...

Unakafov, A. M., Möller, S., Kagan, I. et al. 2018. Using imaging photoplethysmography for heart rate estimation in non-human primates. PLOS ONE 13(8), e0202581.

For humans and for non-human primates heart rate is a reliable indicator of an individual’s current physiological state, with applications ranging from health checks to experimental studies of cognitive and emotional state. In humans, changes...

Fernandes, J. G., Olsson, I. A. S., Vieira de Castro, A. C. 2017. Do aversive-based training methods actually compromise dog welfare?: A literature review. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 196, 1-12.

The methods by which dogs are trained vary between methods involving mainly negative reinforcement and positive punishment (aversive-based methods) and methods based essentially in positive reinforcement and negative punishment (reward-based methods). However, the use of...

Scullion Hall, L. E. M., Robinson, S. 2016. Implementing a successful positive reinforcement training protocol in laboratory-housed dogs. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(2), 83-88.

Training is recognised as important for laboratory animals, both to improve welfare and increase the efficiency of conducting husbandry and regulated procedures. Despite the acknowledged need for such training in the laboratory-housed dog and the...

Chiandetti, C., Avella, S., Fongaro, E. et al. 2016. Can clicker training facilitate conditioning in dogs? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 184, 109-116.

In the attempt to verify clicker training efficacy in shaping dogs’ novel behaviours, we studied 51 domestic dogs. Learning was evaluated in three different conditions: when the primary reinforcer (food) was presented in association with...

Prior, H., Bottomly, A., Champéroux, P. et al. 2016. Social housing of non-rodents during cardiovascular recordings in safety pharmacology and toxicology studies. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 81, 75-87.

Introduction: The Safety Pharmacology Society (SPS) and National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) conducted a survey and workshop in 2015 to define current industry practices relating to housing...

Sadekova, N., Boudreau, G., Jalbert, B. et al. 2016. The effects of housing conditions on baseline cardiovascular parameters and the sensitivity to detect changes in contractility in telemetry-implanted dogs. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 81, 60-74.

Introduction: There is a growing weight of evidence to suggest that myocardial contractility is an important parameter to assess as part of IND enabling studies in addition to standard assessments as per the ICH S7A...

Bloomsmith, M., Kim, N., Franklin, A. et al. 2015. Positive reinforcement methods to train chimpanzees to cooperate with urine collection. JAALAS 54, 66-69.

Positive reinforcement training can be used in many ways to enhance the welfare of captive primates. Training for biologic sample collection is one application of positive reinforcement training. In this study, 35 adult female chimpanzees...

Reamer, L. A., Haller, R. H., Thiele, E. J. et al. 2014. Factors affecting initial training success of blood glucose testing in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Zoo Biology 33(3), 212-220.

Type 2 diabetes can be a problem for captive chimpanzees. Accurate blood glucose (BG) readings are necessary to monitor and treat this disease. Thus, obtaining voluntary samples from primates through positive reinforcement training (PRT) is...

Speer, B. 2014. Normal and abnormal parrot behavior. Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine 23(3), 230-233.

Behavior and behavior-associated issues are an important part of psittacine medicine. However, many veterinarians have an approach to parrots from the basics of handling and restraint to their assessment of behavioral issues (e.g., feather plucking)...

McGowan, R. T. S., Rehn, T., Norling, Y. et al. 2014. Positive affect and learning: Exploring the “Eureka Effect” in dogs. Animal Cognition 17(3), 577–587.

Animals may experience positive affective states in response to their own achievements. We investigated emotional responses to problem-solving in dogs, separating these from reactions to rewards per se using a yoked control design. We also...