Abstract
Simple SummaryVeterinarians are animal health experts. More recently, explicit references to veterinarians as animal welfare experts have proliferated. Veterinarians are ideally situated to act as animal welfare experts by virtue of their core work with animals, influence over owners, their roles in policy development, compliance, and monitoring, and as educators of future veterinary professionals. However, the discipline of animal welfare science has moved beyond a focus on nutrition and health towards an acceptance that the mental experiences of animals are the focus of welfare consideration. The Five Domains Model is a framework for assessing animal welfare and focuses on mental experiences arising from a broad range of impacts or opportunities. The Model can be used as a framework to integrate contemporary understanding of animal welfare science in veterinary curricula and improve welfare literacy within the veterinary profession.Veterinarians are animal health experts. More recently, they have been conferred a leading role as experts in animal welfare. This expectation of veterinarians as welfare experts appears to stem from their training in veterinary medicine as well as professional contributions to welfare-relevant policy and law. Veterinarians are ideally situated to act as animal welfare experts by virtue of their core work with animals and potential influence over owners, their roles in policy development, compliance, and monitoring, and as educators of future veterinarians. However, since its inception as a discipline over 70 years ago, animal welfare science has moved beyond a two-dimensional focus on nutrition and health (biological functioning) towards an understanding that the mental experiences of animals are the focus of welfare consideration. The Five Domains Model is a structured and systematic framework for more holistically considering conditions that contribute to the animal’s internal state and its perception of its external situation, and the resultant mental experiences. The Model can be used to better align veterinary animal welfare expertise with contemporary understanding of animal welfare science and improve welfare literacy within the veterinary profession. Improved understanding of animal welfare science is likely to lead to increased confidence, competence, and empowerment to act as experts in their daily lives.
Highlights
As a result of their training, veterinarians hold primary authority and responsibility for animal health [1]
Veterinarians are called upon for expert commentary and knowledge of animal health during disease outbreaks e.g., [4,5] and are the first port of call for the treatment of sick or injured animals [6,7]. By virtue of their role as animal health experts, veterinarians have implicitly been conferred primary expertise in safeguarding animal welfare more generally [2,3,6,7]. This view of veterinarians as the predominant animal welfare experts appears to stem from their training in veterinary medicine, as well as professional expectations outlined in national and international strategies and laws (e.g., [1,8]), and by veterinary regulatory bodies e.g., [9,10]
This review explores the expanding role of veterinarians in protection and promotion of animal welfare
Summary
As a result of their training, veterinarians hold primary authority and responsibility for animal health [1]. Can impact upon the mental experiences (e.g., satiety or hunger) of animals and their overall welfare status These advances have allowed for an understanding of how situation-related conditions may impede animals’ ability to express strongly motivated behaviours or achieve important goals, i.e., their agency (e.g., barren environments) and result in negative welfare states (e.g., frustration or boredom) despite being in satisfactory physical condition. Veterinarians are ideally placed to advance animal welfare in a range of contexts (Table 1) [12,13,37,42] This potential results from their knowledge and training in veterinary science, their access to animals and their carers in a range of different contexts, their expert contributions to policy and law relating to animals and the public’s trust in them because of their status as medical professionals [9,10,14,43,44,45,46]. There are expectations that veterinarians are competent and confident to act as animal welfare experts
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