Personnel / animal relationships: Affectionate or neutral? A Discussion (2003)

Anonymous

Abstract

The question, "Should animal care personnel be encouraged to establish affectionate, rather than neutral, relationships with the animals in their charge", was raised on the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum. .. Most correspondents agreed that the development of an affectionate relationship with the animals in their charge is almost unavoidable. .. Having a close relationship with your animals is necessary to regard them as living beings, rather than biological test tubes. As such, you are more careful and patient, and will think more about what the procedures mean to the animals. You will get more creative in finding animal friendly alternatives for the procedures you need to do on the animals. You will thus increase the well-being of your animals and, by doing so, make better research subjects and increase the validity of the test results.There was a consensus that the emotional attachment provides an assurance that the animals receive optimal care, both physically and behaviorally. .. A relationship based on trust rather than fear is particularly important when potentially dangerous animals such as macaques are being trained to actively cooperate during handling procedures. There was disagreement whether it is more difficult to establish a relationship with some animal species than with others. .. It was pointed out that to work closely with individual animals or a small group of animals and to observe them for an extended period of time is probably a more important factor for the development of a bond with them than their evolutionary relatedness with our own species or their size. Concern was expressed that establishing an affectionate relationship with experimental subjects and knowing them as individuals would hamper ones impartiality and capacity to be objective when observing and registering their behavior. A caregiver strongly objected: It seems to me that we get hung up on trying to divorce our emotions from what we hope to be our objectivity. I do not think that any normally functioning human being in the world does anything for any reason other than emotional. Sure, research is done to answer questions, but isn't the premise of all research to make human (or animal) lives better? If you want to make lives better, it's because of emotion, not because you are logically attached to life. Several participants of this discussion give names to the animals in their charge or to the animals they study as a tool to quickly remember and recognize individuals or/and as a reflection of their empathy.