Maddie's Insights: The Animal Welfare Assessment Grid (LIVE)

Course overview

The Animal Welfare Assessment Grid (AWAG www.awag.org.uk) is a powerful, cloud-based tool designed to track and visualize the welfare and lifetime experiences of animals. By turning husbandry and veterinary records into clear, easy-to-read graphics, AWAG transforms complex welfare data into compelling visual evidence -- making it easier to communicate with decision-makers, support strategies for change, or substantiate welfare-related marketing claims. Its unique time-based approach looks beyond single moments in time, providing a whole-life perspective that helps animal care professionals plan timely, targeted interventions to improve or safeguard quality of life. Built around the five domains model, AWAG evaluates four key parameters -- physical, behavioral/psychological, environmental, and procedural -- each of which can be tailored to suit different species and animal-use contexts. The tool identifies significant events that impact welfare and calculates a Cumulative Welfare Assessment Score (CWAS) over time, allowing users to see trends in an animal's quality of life at a glance. By highlighting specific areas for refinement, AWAG empowers carers, researchers, and organizations to make data-driven decisions that directly enhance animal welfare. This webcast will explore how AWAG works, its flexibility across settings, and how its lifetime approach to animal well-being sets it apart from other assessment methods.