Effect of new training technique on affinity of cynomolgus monkeys for animal care personnel

To confirm our hypothesis that the sex and age of cynomolgus monkeys influences theeffect of training, we employed a new training technique designed to increase the animal’saffinity for animal care personnel. During 151 days of training, monkeys aged 2 to 10years accepted each 3 raisins/3 times/day, and communicated with animal care personnel (5times/day). Behavior was scored using integers between −1 and 5. Before training, 35 ofthe 61 monkeys refused raisins offered directly by animal care personnel (Score −1, 0 and1). After training, 28 of these 35 monkeys (80%) accepted raisins offered directly byanimal care personnel (>Score 2). The mean score of monkeys increased from 1.2 ± 0.1 to4.3 ± 0.2. The minimum training period required for monkeys to reach Score 2 was longerfor females than for males. After 151 days, 6 of the 31 females and 1 of the 30 malesstill refused raisins offered directly by animal care personnel. Beneficial effects oftraining were obtained in both young and adult monkeys. These results indicate that ournew training technique markedly improves the affinity of monkeys for animal carepersonnel, and that these effects tend to vary by sex but not age. In addition, abnormalbehavior and symptoms of monkeys were improved by this training.