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. 
Hodges, S. 2021. Practical Canine Behaviour: For Veterinary Nurses and Technicians (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

In this book Stephanie Hedges draws on more than 20 years as a practicing veterinary nurse and her training as a Certificated Clinical Animal Behaviourist (CCAB). She provides a quick reference and practically relevant canine...

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...

Leeds, A., Good, J., Schook, M. W. et al. 2020. Evaluating changes in salivary oxytocin and cortisol following positive reinforcement training in two adult male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Zoo Biology 39(1), 51-55.

Positive reinforcement training (PRT) is associated with increases in species-typical behavior and decreases in stereotypic and abnormal behavior in participating animals. Physiological changes following PRT, for example, increases in oxytocin (OXT) and/or decreases in cortisol...

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...

Thoré, E. S. J., Brendonck, L., Pinceel, T. 2020. Conspecific density and environmental complexity impact behaviour of turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri). Fish Biology 97(5), 1448–1461.

Fish models are essential for research in many biological and medical disciplines. With a typical lifespan of only 6 months, the turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri) was recently established as a time- and cost-efficient model to...

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...

Murai, T., Sukoff Rizzo, S. J. 2020. The importance of complementary collaboration of researchers, veterinarians, and husbandry staff in the successful training of marmoset behavioral assays. ILAR Journal 61(2-3), 230-247.

Interest in marmosets as research models has seen exponential growth over the last decade, especially given that the research community is eager to improve on gaps with historical animal models for behavioral and cognitive disorders...

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...

Finkemeier, M.-A., Oesterwind, S., Nürnberg, G. et al. 2019. Assessment of personality types in Nigerian dwarf goats (Capra hircus) and cross-context correlations to behavioural and physiological responses. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 217, 28-35.

The assessment of personality in farm animals and its relation to other behavioural and physiological traits is of growing scientific and practical interest. Therefore, the aims of the present study were first to assess the...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Lovell-Badge, R. et al. 2019. Report of the 2018 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 81-91.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Working Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 25 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and...

Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...

Egelkamp, C. L., Leahy, M. A., Ross, S. R. et al. 2018. Testing food preferences in zoo-housed apes with touchscreens. American Journal of Primatology 80(S1), 30 (40th Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists Scientific Program, Abstract #58).

Preference testing has many benefits, informing both applied management decisions and theoretical questions. We developed a preference‐testing method in which subjects are shown pairs of photographs of food items on a touchscreen in a forced‐choice...

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...

González-Pech, P. G., Marín-Tun, C. G., Valladares-González, D.A. et al. 2018. A protocol of human animal interaction to habituate young sheep and goats for behavioural studies. Behavioural Processes 157, 632-637.

Animal habituation is key to obtain reliable data on behavioural studies but detailed procedures to achieve it are scarce. This study designed a set of actions to habituate sheep and goats to human observers. Pelibuey...

Freret-Meurer, N. V., Alves, M. A. S. 2018. Personality in the longsnout seahorse, Hippocampus reidi Ginsburg, 1933: Are males shyer than females? Behavioural Processes 157, 106-110.

Individual responses, particularly based on personality, can have important consequences for individual fitness, based upon success in exploring new habitats, feeding on novel foods, and aggressiveness in competitive interactions. We conducted laboratory experiments to analyze...

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...

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...

Stevens, C. H., Croft, D. P., Paull, G. C. et al. 2017. Stress and welfare in ornamental fishes: What can be learned from aquaculture? Journal of Fish Biology 91(2), 409-428.

The ornamental fish trade is estimated to handle up to 1.5 billion fishes. Transportation and handling of fishes imposes a range of stressors that can result in mortality at rates of up to 73%. Given...

Jolles, J. W., Aaron-Taylor, B., Manica, A. 2016. Recent social conditions affect boldness repeatability in individual sticklebacks. Animal Behaviour 112, 139-145.

Animal personalities are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom and have been shown both to influence individual behaviour in the social context and to be affected by it. However, little attention has been paid to possible...

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...