Legal Regulation for Providing Welfare Measures for Therapy Dogs Involved in Canine Therapy in Latvia

Abstract

The article analyses therapy dog welfare aspects based on theoretical literature review, researches and regulatoryenactments, providing a unique interpretation of these aspects arising from the consideration that therapy dogs havedual roles, being both therapy animals and household pets. The present research aims to analyse implemented wel-fare measures for therapy dogs, based on scientific literature and regulatory acts. Fifteen semi-structured interviewswere conducted to explore how therapy dog owners provide welfare requirements to their therapy dogs. The followingcategories of welfare were identified to describe therapy dogs involved in a canine therapy: meeting basic needs, vet-erinary care, training, work process and possibility to express species-specific behaviour. The research results indicatethat therapy dog handlers fulfil the minimum requirements of welfare and in some cases exceed these requirements;however, it is up to a handler to choose whether the minimum or an exceeded amount of welfare requirements will beperformed. Lack of regulation in some cases necessitates improvement in setting minimum demands, for instance, insuch cases as a therapy dog workload per day/week.