Research overview: positive-reinforcement training as a welfare tool for captive felids

Operant conditioning with positive reinforcement underpins modern husbandry training, allowing cats to cooperate in shifting, crating, weighing and medical procedures. This overview surveys the learning-theory basis of felid training, evidence that training reduces procedural stress and provides cognitive enrichment and a sense of control, and practical considerations such as reinforcer selection, shaping, bridging stimuli and session design. It discusses how training builds keeper-animal relationships that can buffer other stressors, how it enables non-invasive health monitoring, and the importance of avoiding aversive methods. It also notes individual and species differences in trainability. The synthesis positions positive-reinforcement training as simultaneously a management efficiency, an enrichment activity and a measurable welfare intervention for captive cats.