© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com. 373 ILAR Journal, 2019, Vol. 60, No. 3, 373–388 https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar/ilaa001 Review A Good Life for Laboratory Rodents? I. Joanna Makowska 1,2, * and Daniel M. Weary 1 1 Animal Welfare Program, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and 2 Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC, USA *Corresponding author: I. J. Makowska, PhD, Animal Welfare Program, University of British Columbia, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada. E-mail: joanna.makowska@ubc.ca. Abstract Most would agree that animals in research should be spared “unnecessary” harm, pain, or distress, and there is also growing interest in providing animals with some form of environmental enrichment. But is this the standard of care that we should aspire to? We argue that we need to work towards a higher standard—specifically,that providing research animals with a “good life” should be a prerequisite for their use. The aims of this paper are to illustrate our vision of a “good life” for laboratory rats and mice and to provide a roadmap for achieving this vision. We recognize that several research procedures are clearly incompatible with a good life but describe here what we consider to be the minimum day-to-day living conditions to be met when using rodents in research. A good life requires that animals can express a rich behavioral repertoire, use their abilities, and fulfill their potential through active engagement with their environment. In the first section, we describe how animals could be housed for these requirements to be fulfilled, from simple modifications to standard housing through to better cage designs and free-ranging options. In the second section, we review the types of interactions with laboratory rodents that are compatible with a good life. In the third section, we address the potential for the animals to have a life outside of research, including the use of pets in clinical trials (the animal-as-patient model) and the adoption of research animals to new homes when they are no longer needed in research.We conclude with a few suggestions for achieving our vision. Key words: agency; animal welfare; complexity; free-range; natural behaviour; socialization Introduction The relationship between humans and animals in laboratories is ambiguous. On the one hand, animals are brought into research institutions as a means to an end; they are the tools of scientific enquiry and their use is justified on the basis of benefits to us [1]. But they are also sentient individuals with whom we sometimes share our homes and form strong and long-lasting relationships. The near-universal consensus is that animals in research should be spared “unnecessary” harm, pain, or distress [2, 3]. In practice, this usually means ensuring the animals are ade- quately fed and watered, kept relatively free of disease, and given pain relief when needed. Species-specific requirements, such as social housing and some form of environmental enrichment, are also considered; however, these are weighed against other concerns and provided if they are perceived to be practical and not interfere with the study aims [4–6]. But is this the standard of care that we should aspire to? We argue that we need to work towards a higher standard—specifically, that providing research animals with a “good life” should be a prerequisite for their use. There are several potential arguments for this position, but here we touch on just 4. First and foremost, we suggest that it is our duty, under the terms of the “ancient contract,” to provide a good life to animals we have taken under our care and from whom we expect to benefit [7]. The other 3 arguments are pragmatic: keeping animals in better conditions is likely to make the results of the research more generalizable and more repeatable [8, 9]; caring for animals who are living their best life may increase job satisfaction and decrease compassion fatigue in animal care staff [10]; and, given that societal expectations regarding the standard of care for animals are increasing, having a high standard of care may better allow animal researchers to continue to justify their use (ie, retain their social license to use animals for scientific progress). Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ilarjournal/article/60/3/373/5822548 by guest on 08 October 2021