Association of Animal Behavior Professionals

Ethical Treatment of Animals in Research

This is the stance of The Journal of Applied Companion Animal Behavior on the use of animals in research

Animals should not be harmed in the study of their behavior. The Journal of Applied Companion Animal Behavior recognizes a higher standard of ethical responsibility to the rights of animals under scientific investigation than is common. Full informed consent should also be secured from guardians of any animal used in any study. For any study that makes use of aversives, full informed consent must be secured from the participant themselves (this is only possible with human participants). With regards to harm, broadly speaking, an animal is harmed if he or she is caused non-trivial aversion, distress, significant loss of opportunity or physical harm. All reasonable precautions are to be taken to prevent the causing of harm to any animals. The Journal of Applied Companion Animal Behavior will not publish essays based on research carried out by the authors or those under their direction that caused harm to the subjects.