In a room of full of clinical veterinarians and animal care technicians, everybody is about to play a game. There are some rules of each of the 15 or 20 teams will receive a species designation (money, mouse rabbit, dog, pig, rat) a piece of poster board, a magic marker, and an index card that describes a study that species. The notes on the index cards describe experimental constraints, for example, as a part of a study of the auditory system, the control condition requires complete silence. Teams will then have about 30 minutes to think up and draw some device or toy that improves the cage environment for the animals in a manner appropriate for each species, and activity that generally falls under the heading of enrichment.
I join one of the rat groups, faced with an obesity study in which the constraint is mandatory couch potato. That meansthe enrichment cannot involve any activity, such as borrowing, climbing or running, that would burn extra calories. My four partners two lab animals vets and two animal facility managers from a well known university one state over brainstorm species specific behaviors, but no devices are coming to mind. One jokes about creating something taking to an island paradise where rats can lounge, martini in paw.