Learning Objectives

• Define Animal Welfare
• Understand the History and Significance of Five Freedoms
• Understand how to use a guide to accommodate for the 5 freedoms
• Understand how adhering to a 5 freedoms model is good for a dog training business

Animal welfare broadly refers to the mental and physical wellbeing of an individual animal.

This is not to be confused with animal rights:

Animal rights is the principal that animals should live free from the utility and exploitations of humans.

Animal rights advocates generally disagree with the use of animals for:

• medical research
• hunting
• zoos
• food
• pets

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Good animal welfare entails animal physical and mental health, with respect to a general sense of their well-being. Animals, especially those kept and domesticated by humans, must always be safe from unnecessary pain.

In 1964, Ruth Harrison wrote the book "Animal Machines" which discussed how people in Britain raised livestock and poultry prior to 1965. Reports which exposed the unethical and inhumane methods of animal production caused concern among the British public.

As a result, the British government established a commission to look into the condition of farm animals, and a year later, the committee, led by Professor Roger Brambell, presented what has become known as "The Brambell Report" – an 85-page "Report of the Technical Committee to Inquire into the Welfare of Animals Kept Under Intensive Livestock Husbandry Systems".

The Brambell Report stated that animals, in a general sense, should be able to "stand up, lie down, turn around, groom themselves, and stretch their limbs". Such rights became recognized as Brambell's Five Freedoms.

The Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (Now known as the Farm Animal Welfare Committee) was created in response to Brambell's report to monitor the livestock production sector and by 1992 the Five Freedoms evolved into the format below, paired with corresponding provisions:

These five freedoms have been used as a base guide for many organizations that advocate for animal welfare across the globe, including those specializing in:

• Farm animals
• Laboratory animals
• Zoos
• Humane Societies

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Moving beyond the "Five Freedoms" by Updating the "Five Provisions" and Introducing Aligned "Animal Welfare Aims" by David J. Mellor was published in 2016.

Addresses two disadvantages of the "Five Freedoms":

• The word "freedom" can be misunderstood as "complete freedom". For example a dog needs to be "thirsty" in order to drink water. So "freedom from thirst" becomes open to scrutiny. It is more realistic and easier to implement policies if the focus is on "minimizing".
• The publication addresses the objectives or "aims" of the provisions, which assists the average non-specialist who are concerned about animal welfare.

For the Dog Training Professional

Using the "Five Freedoms" in the assessment of dog welfare can be used to generate questions that can quantify the quality of dogs in the care of a trainer, organization, or even a household.

Focusing on "provisions" rather than the "freedoms" helps create questions that are more practically orientated.

It is useful to reflect upon categorized questions, like these below, because they illustrate the importance
of good human management of dogs to ensure that high levels of welfare are attained.

Provision (provide)	Questions
Good Nutrition	(1) Is food appropriate for the breed, age, activity level, and health status of the individual dog? (2) Is the food and water kept, prepared, and served hygienically? (3) Does the dog have appropriate access to clean water.
Good Environment	(1) Are temperature, ventilation, lighting and noise levels appropriate? (2) Do outside enclosures have sufficient shelter? (3) Do dog kennels provide sufficient space? (4) Do dogs have a comfortable surface to rest upon? (5) Is the cleaning and disinfection schedule of the kennels satisfactory? (6) Are feces removed promptly from training yards? (6) Is the standard of maintenance of buildings and fences adequate? (7) Is all drainage effective and safe?
Good Health	(1) Are dogs observed daily for signs of injury, disease, and abnormal behavior? (2) Do all dogs receive prompt and appropriate attention when problems are noted? (3) Are enclosures and kennels designed and operated in such a way that social interaction problems are avoided? (4) Is staff reasonably trained in health crisis prevention and emergency first aid protocols? (5) Is there a plan for emergency veterinary care? (6) Is equipment for safe restraint available? (muzzles, protective clothing, etc...) (8) Is a satisfactory program of veterinary preventative care established and maintained? (9) Are appropriate veterinary records kept? (10) Are medicines correctly kept? (11) Are appropriate antidotes available for individual dogs? (E.g. epipen) (14) Does it appear that general sanitation and pest control are effective? (15) Are dog transport equipment, vehicles, and temperature regulation protocols in good order and designed with appropriate safety considerations?
Appropriate Behavior	(1) Does accommodation appear adequately to meet the biological needs and physical abilities of the dogs? (running, jumping, and playing) (2) Are active efforts made to enrich the dogs environments where necessary or advantageous? (Stimulating environment, choices of activities, items to to chew, etc..) (3) Are dogs provided with pleasurable outlets for their individual drives, rather than just suppressing unwanted behavior? (hunting, chasing, biting, etc..)
Positive Mental Experiences	(1) Are animals handled only by, or under the supervision of appropriately qualified staff? (2) Do training plans follow a Least Intrusive and Minimally Aversive (LIMA) protocol? (3) Are interactions between dogs monitored to ensure that they are not excessively stressful? (4) Do management and training plans promote confidence and a sense of control and the ability to avoid unpleasant experiences?

Donald M. Broom (1999) has produced a list of measures of poor animal welfare:

• reduced longevity
• reduced ability to grow or breed
• body damage (i.e. injury)
• disease
• immunosuppression
• physiological attempts to cope
• behavioral attempts to cope
• behavior pathology (e.g. stereotypies, apathy, self-mutilation, learned helplessness)
• self narcotization
• extent of behavioral aversion expressed
• extent of the suppression of normal behavior patterns
• extent to which normal physiological processes and anatomical development are inhibited.

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Broom (1999) has also produced a list of good welfare measures:
• variety of normal behaviours expressed;
• extent to which strongly preferred behaviours can be expressed;
• physiological indicators of pleasure;
• behavioural indicators of pleasure.

“I believe what's good for cattle is good for business”

- Temple Grandin

Provision	Good for Dog Training
Good nutrition	- Less health problems - Less clean-up - Better training endurance - More training repetitions per time spent
Good environment	- Less health emergencies - Energetic and more focused dogs for training - Better public image
Good Health	- Healthier dogs have more energy, can complete more repetitions, better overall presentation - Money and time saved on ongoing health concerns and outbreaks
Appropriate Behavior	- prevention of digging, nuisance barking, destruction of property, injury - better results, client satisfaction
Positive Mental Experience	Higher moral of staff, better public image, better results

Dog trainers that do not adhere to "The Five Freedoms" are prone to preventable hardships in their business and are prone to poor public relations and bad press.