Chapter 7.2. Injection and Blood Collection? How to minimize Stress Reactions (2007)

LAREF [Laboratory Animal Refinement and Enrichment Forum]

Abstract

If the animals are under stress while you are working with them, there is a great risk that they show aggressive reactions to you, in an attempt to get away from the stressful situation. One of the conditions of successful and safe positive reinforcement training is a stress-free work environment, both for the animal and for you. This means, neither the animal nor you should be under the emotional influence of fear, apprehension or frustration. These emotions are dangerous when your handle monkeys or, for that matter, any other animals.You should reach a stage when you know that you can trust the trainee while you work with him or her. This does not mean that you should not be alert, but any traces of mistrust and fear puts you into a seriously dangerous position. Do not work with an animal, unless you have trust in him or her! For your additional safety, you will always have to make sure that your interaction with the trainee will not be disturbed or disrupted by any unexpected event, such as personnel entering the room or loud personnel passing in hallways. "With positive reinforcement, I have trained adult female cynos to cooperate during intramuscular injection in home cages that are not equipped with squeeze-backs. When they can trust you, they readily learn to cooperate during this common procedure. These animals work with rather than against me, which automatically implies that they show no fear or stress reactions during the procedure."