Preclinical models are essential tools in wound healing research, enabling both mechanistic insights and the evaluation of therapeutic safety prior to human use. To effectively translate findings, these models aim to replicate the human wound environment as closely as possible while reducing confounding factors. Over time, researchers have developed a range of in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo systems to capture the complex mechanisms of wound healing. These models have contributed to major clinical advances, improving our ability to predict, prevent, and treat wound-related complications. They also help understand why certain wounds heal better or worse depending on timing, wound environment, and underlying pathology. However, preclinical models have inherent limitations due to anatomic and physiological differences between humans and animals, which vary based on species type. These challenges can be mitigated by selecting an appropriate model type and weighing the advantages and limitations of each based on the specific injury type or phenotype desired. Ongoing work is focused on standardizing in vivo protocols for reproducibility and advancing in vitro models to better mimic humans and reduce animal use for in vivo models. This chapter explores the evolution of preclinical wound models and current applications in wound healing research.