The Welfare of Animals Part 5 potx

Welfare Perception

Welfare perception by humans is therefore influenced by many factors, includ￾ing cultural traditions, gender, intelligence level, probably human genetics and

possibly age. There may be a distinct difference between the perceived and

actual animal welfare. Both will be relevant for welfare assessment, but the

former will be most useful to understand the public position on welfare require￾ments and the latter for objective improvement. As society progresses, the

perception of the desirable animal welfare state will change, and it is likely

that there will be greater emphasis on equity in provision for animal welfare.

Currently very different standards are aimed for, depending on the type of

animal. Greater equity would be a mark of a more caring society, representing

societal progress, whereas focusing on traditional attitudes to animals that

derive from the benefits that they produce ignores the responsibility that we

have to manage all animals. For example, rats used to be a major cause of

disease, infesting crops and offering no benefit to human society. They were

universally reviled and where possible exterminated. Now that their antihuman

activities have, in most developed societies at least, been controlled, their

benefits to society as companions or laboratory animals are beginning to be

recognized.

Positive and Negative Welfare Components

Animal welfare can be measured in terms of good and bad experiences, as

outlined in Chapter 1. In terms of good experiences, happiness is a major goal

for all living beings, as numerous spiritual leaders over the centuries have

taught, perhaps most notably the current Dallai Llama (Mehrotra, 2005).

Human and animal happiness are both dependent on the balance between

perceived negative and positive experiences, but for humans with their complex

cognitive abilities there is the opportunity to alter the perception of any event

from negative to positive just by training the mind. It is likely that the oppor￾tunity for animals to train themselves, or be trained, to increase their level of

happiness by freeing their mind from worry, hatred or other negative emotions

is more limited than for humans. Nevertheless, companion animals will often be

comforted by their owners, providing reassurance that they should not be

frightened, for example in a thunder storm. The benefits of complementary

therapy for animals, including relaxation techniques, such as through touch, are

evident for humans and may also be applicable to animals but are rarely

explored scientifically. Cats and dogs are often patted and stroked to enhance

the bond with humans and calm them, and sometimes cattle stockmen will also

use contact positively in this way. Animal physiotherapy is now adopting a

more universal application, rather than just for veterinary medicine. Animals

82 5 Welfare Assessment

that suffer from anxiety, such as dogs separated from their owners, probably

would benefit just as much as us from relaxation therapy.

The impacts of diet on animal welfare are also starting to be explored. A high

protein diet, long recognised to stimulate boxers to be more aggressive, has

some of the same mood enhancing effects in the common dairy cow (Phillips

and Kitwood, 2003). Conversely diets that are deficient in essential nutrients

may stimulate animals to fight over food, or develop exploratory feeding habits

in an attempt to rectify the deficiency. Odours may influence the mood of

animals, as it does in humans, and beneficial effects of lavender straw have

been observed in reducing travel sickness in pigs (Bradshaw et al., 1998). Some

odours, such as citronella oil, are noxious to animals and are now used to

control barking behaviour in dogs, with a collar emitting a short burst of the

oil every time a dog barks (Steiss et al., 2007).

Some scientists are beginning to question whether there should be more

emphasis on the creation of positive welfare states, instead of focusing on

avoiding negative welfare. For example, Yeates and Main (2008) recently

suggested that more attempts should be made to extend welfare assessment to

indicators of positive affect, or emotion, recognising that they largely concen￾trate on negative emotion at present. The reason that they concentrate on the

negative elements may be partly because the public are better able to empathise

with animal’s negative experiences. Many would agree that we owe animals a

life with avoidance of the most serious negative emotions, but that there is less

moral imperative to encourage us to create experiences likely to result in

positive emotions. However, a major common theme underpinning most reli￾gions, and hence moral imperatives, in the world today is the golden rule which

says that we should treat others in a way that we would like them to treat us.

This does not distinguish between positive and negative consequences of our

actions. It does not suggest that treating others badly is any more important

than not treating them well.

Nevertheless, most research has been conducted on negative aspects of

welfare and the several different methods of measuring welfare allows us to be

confident that some practices do indeed cause negative emotion. So animals are

likely to respond to a practice which induces negative emotions with negative

behaviour responses (such as abnormal behaviours, stereotypies and avoidance

behaviour), increased disease incidence, reduced production and reproductive

rate, reduced longevity and adverse effects on physiology. For example, a lame

dairy cow will have behavioural indicators that she is experiencing negative

emotions – she will limp, in order to withhold pressure on her diseased claw and

will lie down for a long time (O’Callaghan et al., 2003). She also will eat less and

produce less milk (Bach et al., 2007), have a reduced life expectancy and is less

likely to become pregnant (Bicalho et al., 2007; Melendez et al., 2003).

Her nutrient status, as evidenced by her body condition, is likely to be low

(Garbarino et al., 2004), and physiological measures could detect the metabolic

consequences of the lameness (high cortisol concentrations, adverse effects on

reproductive and nutritional hormones, for example) (El-Ghoul and Hofmann,

Positive and Negative Welfare Components 83