Very interesting article that brought up many memories, but this feels like too public a space to discuss given the stigma and anger that can get focused on animal research topics.
It seems like modeling clinical conferences that discuss patient cases that have been particularly upsetting to staff could be a model for animal care staff as well. Something like a monthly meeting where animal care staff and research staff could decompress and discuss the importance of the research that is being conducted while acknowledging the unique emotional toll of working with animals.
There's not much you can do to "decompress" when you go to work, sentence dogs to death, and then go home to your family pet and look at them thinking they could've been one of those dogs. I've met meat packers who still are haunted by the animals they killed.
It's because humans have moral and ethnical frameworks. Despite a document drafting XYZ is okay because "its for science" it still is wrong in the sense you are sacrificing something with a memory, sadness, happiness, etc for a possible "greater good". Especially for dogs, an animal deeply engrained and coevolved with humans, I cannot imagine the amount of cognitive dissonance, or more likely, sociopathy that would be required to engage in such experiments.
We trivialize the fact it's unethical to experiment on humans. I am not a treehugger or anything but to suggest talk therapy will help solve a very real moral and ethical problem...well I'm not sure you understand. Veterinarians have an extremely high suicide rate for a reason. Moreover, I will never forget the callousness of the veterinarian who suggested I put my family dog down for something that wasn't immediately fatal. It's only a small step from that asshole to these assholes and that step is complete transcendence into pathological psychopathy. We simply sometimes benefit from these psychopaths gassing dogs and pigs. It does not imply such a thing is either morally or ethically correct and no amount of "decompressing" will fix it. It just is what it is and some people have developed the pathological brain wiring to allow themselves to do it.
There are a lot of jobs that are necessary in society that have an emotional toll that can't be obviated. All of us, including you and I benefit from the fruits of their labor. Emotional and psychological support in the form of therapy absolutely can ease some of that burden.
It seems like modeling clinical conferences that discuss patient cases that have been particularly upsetting to staff could be a model for animal care staff as well. Something like a monthly meeting where animal care staff and research staff could decompress and discuss the importance of the research that is being conducted while acknowledging the unique emotional toll of working with animals.