Maddie's Insights: Five Domains Model for Animal Welfare Assessment (On Demand)

Course overview

Animal well-being 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, well-being 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 well-being. It is used to systematically assess the well-being 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 well-being 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 well-being 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 well-being and how they also provide a means of considering how best to care for animals.