Animal Welfare and Behavior Flashcards

The concept of 'learned helplessness' in animals is most directly relevant to which welfare concern?

Answer: Chronic uncontrollable stress leading to behavioral depression

Learned helplessness—first described by Seligman—occurs when animals exposed to inescapable aversive stimuli cease attempting to escape even when escape becomes possible, indicating severe psychological impairment.

Which social housing strategy best reduces aggression in group-housed male mice?

Answer: Stable cage groups established before sexual maturity with no mixing

Establishing stable cage groups before puberty allows dominance hierarchies to form without the hormonal escalation that triggers severe wounding in adult male mixing.

A veterinarian observes a pig repeatedly biting the tail of a pen-mate. The most appropriate first intervention is:

Answer: Identify and correct environmental risk factors such as overcrowding, poor ventilation, or nutritional deficiencies

Tail-biting is a redirect of exploratory behavior driven by environmental deficits; correcting stressors (density, enrichment, diet) is the evidence-based first step.

According to the 3Rs framework, 'refinement' specifically refers to:

Answer: Improving procedures to minimize pain, suffering, and distress

Refinement encompasses any modification of husbandry or experimental procedures that reduces the severity or duration of suffering experienced by animals.

Allogrooming in social species such as cats and non-human primates primarily functions as:

Answer: Social bonding and tension reduction

While allogrooming does remove ectoparasites, its primary adaptive function in most social species is reinforcing affiliative bonds and reducing social tension.

Which pharmacological class is most commonly used to provide pre-emptive multimodal analgesia in veterinary surgical patients to improve welfare?

Answer: Opioids combined with NSAIDs

Pre-emptive multimodal analgesia combining opioids (for central analgesia) with NSAIDs (for peripheral/inflammatory pain) is the evidence-based standard for minimizing perioperative pain.

Qualitative Behavior Assessment (QBA) in livestock welfare evaluates:

Answer: The overall expressive quality of an animal's body language, such as 'relaxed' or 'agitated'

QBA integrates multiple behavioral cues into a holistic description of the animal's internal state using observer-assigned descriptors validated through principal component analysis.