Maddie's Insights: Five Domains Model for Animal Welfare Assessment - On-demand webcast

Animal welfare represents how an animal experiences their life. It characterizes the overall mental experiences of an animal and is a subjective concept that cannot be directly measured. Instead, welfare indicators are used to cautiously infer mental experiences from resource provisions, management factors and a range of animal-based measures. The Five Domains Model is a holistic and structured framework for gathering together these indicators and assessing animal welfare. It is used to systematically assess the welfare of animals in a range of contexts and explicitly focuses on an animal's mental experiences. 

The Five Domains Model is used internationally to assess animal welfare in a range of contexts. The Model also represents a framework that could be used to advance animal care – by drawing attention to a wide range of areas where we can make improvements. While animal welfare is an animal-centered concept (i.e., the focus is on assessing an animal's mental experiences), animal care is human-centered (i.e., the focus is on what we can provide for animals). Animal care encourages those responsible for animals to consider providing them with a range of opportunities so that they can have a good life. The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate how the Five Domains can be used to scientifically assess animal welfare and how they also provide a means of considering how best to care for animals.

Presenter: Kat Littlewood, BVSc (Dist), PGDipVCS (Dist), PhD, AFHEA, FANZCVS (AWSEL)

This webinar has been pre-approved for 1.0 Certified Animal Welfare Administrator continuing education credits by The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and by the National Animal Care & Control Association. Approval for 1 hour of continuing education credit in jurisdictions which recognize RACE approval has been submitted.

Visit Maddie's Pet Forum to comment, follow a discussion or ask questions: https://maddies.fund/MIwebcast5Domains

keywords  Maddie's Insights, Kat Littlewood, five domains of animal care, animal welfare, scientific assessment of animal welfare, care for shelter animals, mental experiences of animals, animal behavior, Tāwharau Ora, Massey University, New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics, & Law, animal research