Purdue University has offered an online course to become certified in rat tickling. "Tickling is increasingly recognised as an effective means of improving laboratory rat welfare through mimicking natural play habits," states the NC3Rs, the course's creators whose mission is to to "accelerate advances in replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals in research and testing."
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
-Describe the purpose and benefits of rat tickling
-Practically implement rat tickling in your facility
-Recognise signs that rats are responding positively or negatively to tickling
If you don't require official certification but would still like to learn this useful skill, the course materials are publicly available here.
(via LOL (lots of links))
