And, training results, such as animals voluntarily cooperating in veterinary procedures, ultimately are time and labor saving. Currently, urine from these females is collected once per cycle by separating the female from her group and waiting for her to urinate, which may take minutes to hours. Training a chimp to urinate on cue may initially take several hours of time over several weeks. However, investing those few hours to achieve reliable collection in less than 10 minutes realizes tremendous time savings over the life of that animal. With urine collection simple and reliable, other research or medical opportunities also become possible.
Training offers a wide array of benefits for animals and personnel.
Through the process of desensitization, animals are conditioned to voluntarily cooperate in veterinary procedures that can be negative events. Training sessions are spent pairing positive reinforcement with these negative events, ultimately making them less negative, less scary, and less stressful. Also, when animals voluntarily cooperate, anesthesia becomes unnecessary, and the frequency of these behaviors can be increased for use on a preventive basis. Another, more subtle benefit is the increase in choices and control that trained animals' experience. Restraining an animal for a procedure, or having an animal voluntarily cooperate during the procedure without restraint, are two very different events, for both the animal and personnel.