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Pain management for laboratory animals is a high priority and a veterinarian’s challenge: how do we recognize it, prevent it, and treat it? I show that animal pain can be surprisingly difficult to see, leading to a “if we don’t see it, it’s not a problem” mindset that hurts animals. I call for a greater human awareness of animal pain, and better use of more pain medicines in more animal experiments. Against charges that I am too anthropomorphic, I challenge readers to bring what they know about pain from their personal experiences, supplemented by what life with dogs and cats can teach us, so that we think more deeply about pain in other animals. I challenge vets and scientists to be aggressive in fighting against animal pain, confident that pain-free animals are usually better research subjects. What’s more, the animals deserve this.
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