Pig training and conditioning for research

Pigs and mini-pigs are particularly useful for research in surgical models, medical device development, drug development and drug safety assessments and tissue and organ transplantation. During research studies, animals may be handled, transported, and restrained for dosing, blood collection, data gathering or clinical observations. Minimization of stress and undesirable impacts to animals while performing these procedures improve animal welfare, caretaker satisfaction and data strength. There is a growing interest to explore operant techniques, inclusion of other learning principles and the skills of the trainer, training may enhance or impair the animal’s welfare. Many institutions around the world have begun to explore ways to enrich housing conditions and implement positive reinforcement (PR) training and other operant conditioning (OC) techniques when working with pigs and mini-pigs, as well as classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian Conditioning), which should be considered an integral part of operant conditioning. This joint WG is set up to discuss the use of OC techniques – and especially PR - to assess potential refinements, and to discuss training and environmental enrichment as alternatives to the more severe options including forceful handling and fixation. The review and compilation of good practices in the use of environmental enrichment and OC training in pigs and mini-pigs would be a valuable addition to the research toolbox improving animal and staff wellbeing and data integrity. Tasks, proposed line of work The working group shall: • Focus on pigs and mini-pigs used for research. • Review the use of operant conditioning techniques, including positive reinforcement, in relation to keeping, breeding and use of laboratory pigs. • Review Environmental Enrichment (EE) practices (including human-animal interactions/relationships) as EE may have a positive effect on learning abilities in pigs. • Discuss benefits and negative impacts on animal welfare of methods used for environmental enrichment, habituation, extinction and OC training (including positive reinforcement and positive punishment) • Discuss potential impact on experimental outcome of the different techniques used for environmental enrichment, habituation, extinction and OC training (including positive reinforcement and positive punishment) • Propose good practices for environmental enrichment, habituation, extinction and OC training.