The importance of animal welfare science and ethics to veterinary students in Australia and New Zealand

The study of animal welfare and ethics (AWE) as part of veterinary education is important due to increasing community concerns and expectations about this topic, global pressures regarding food security, and the requirements of veterinary accreditation, especially with respect to Day One Competences. To address several key questions regarding the attitudes to AWE of veterinary students in Australia and New Zealand (NZ), the authors surveyed the 2014 cohort of these students. The survey aimed (1) to reveal what AWE topics veterinary students in Australia and NZ consider important as Day One Competences, and (2) to ascertain how these priorities align with existing research on how concern for AWE relates to gender and stage of study. Students identified triage and professional ethics as the most important Day One Competences in AWE. Students ranked an understanding of triage as increasingly important as they progressed through their program. Professional ethics was rated more important by early and mid-stage students than by senior students. Understanding the development of animal welfare science and perspectives on animal welfare were rated as being of little importance to veterinary graduates as Day One Competences, and an understanding of “why animal welfare matters” declined as the students progressed through the program. Combined, these findings suggest that veterinary students consider it more important to have the necessary practical skills and knowledge to function as a veterinarian on their first day in practic

Defining the terms and processes associated with equitation

The need for precise definitions is accepted in human psychiatry (DSM-IV, 1994) and is increasingly called for in veterinary behaviour medicine (Overall, 1997;2005). In contrast, the use of non-scientific terms is customary in equestrian circles and is added to by contemporary trainers and self-styled horse whisperers. Data suggest that qualified equestrian instructors frequently confuse the meaning of terms that originated in behavioural science (Warren-Smith and McGreevy, in prep). Several descriptors may be used for the same behaviour, depending on the observer (Mills, 1998). The use of such terms may encourage imprecise and inappropriate interpretations of equine behaviour. For example, many layman’s terms imply subjective mental states in the horse and that horses are culpable participants in the training process. These assumptions can have negative welfare implications for the domestic horse and safety implications for riders and handlers (McLean, 2004). Publication of the Equid Ethogram (McDonnell, 2003) is welcomed, since it defines terms that appear in the literature on free-ranging and managed horses. However, the Equid Ethogram includes discussion on few human-horse interactions. Since equitation science seeks to improve the welfare of horses and improve clarity of communication in their interface with humans, it isappropriate to address this apparent gap in the agreed hippological terminology. This paper advocates the need for a glossary of terms that provide a scientific framework on which to base future discussions and debate. The challenge for equitation science is to define and quantify as many elements of the interaction between riders and horses as possible. Ethological and anatomical nomenclature can and should be used to describe a horse’s manoeuvres but the description and measurement of more conceptual and less tangible qualities, such as feelings (including happiness), depends on the development of more innovative techniques than are currently available. That said, it is possible toquantify acute and chronic stress through the measurement of heart rate and corticosteroid concentrations.The glossary and definitions offered below will be presented at the First International Equitation Science Symposium and remain a living document that can be reviewed by subsequent symposia and downloaded from a nominated web-site. Underlined words have separate entries in this glossary

Educators' perspectives on animal welfare and ethics in the Australian and New Zealand veterinary curricula

The current study was designed to explore the importance that veterinary science educators in Australian and New Zealand universities assign to animal welfare and ethics (AWE) topics as Day One/Initial Competences for new graduates. An online questionnaire was deployed in parallel with an equivalent study of veterinary science students at these educators' schools. Responses were received from 142 educators (51% females n=72 and 49% males n=70), representing an overall participation rate of 25%. Questions were clustered according to seven areas of veterinary employment: general practice, production animals, companion animals, wild animals, aquatic animals, animals kept for scientific purposes, and animals used in sport and recreation. The most highly rated topics for each of these clusters were: professional ethics in general practice, euthanasia in companion animals, strategies to address painful husbandry procedures in production animals, veterinarians' duties to wild animals in animals in the wild, aquatic animal health and welfare issues in aquatic animals; competence in the 3Rs (replacement, refinement and reduction) in animals kept for scientific purposes, and responsibilities of ownership in sport and recreation. Female educators rated many of the topics as significantly more important than did their male counterparts. Educators teaching one or more ethics-related subjects were less likely to rate neutering and euthanasia as important as those not teaching these subjects. The educators' focus on practical issues clashes with a perceived need for veterinarians to actively embrace animal ethics. Overall, the perspectives of these educators should be carefully considered as they are likely to influence student attitudes

Welfare-Adjusted Life Years (WALY): A novel metric of animal welfare that combines the impacts of impaired welfare and abbreviated lifespan.

&lt;p&gt;Currently, separate measures are used to estimate the impact of animal diseases on mortality and animal welfare. This article introduces a novel metric, the Welfare-Adjusted Life Year (WALY), to estimate disease impact by combining welfare compromise and premature death components. Adapting the Disability-Adjusted Life Year approach used in human health audits, we propose WALY as the sum of a) the years lived with impaired welfare due to a particular cause and b) the years of life lost due to the premature death from the same cause. The years lived with impaired welfare are the product of the average duration of each welfare impediment, reflecting the actual condition that compromises animal welfare, the probability of an incident case developing and impaired welfare weights, representing the degree of impaired welfare. The years of life lost are calculated using the standard expected lifespan at the time of premature death. To demonstrate the concept, we estimated WALYs for 10 common canine diseases, namely mitral valve disease, dilated cardiomyopathy, chronic kidney disease, diabetes mellitus, atopic dermatitis, splenic haemangiosarcoma, appendicular osteosarcoma, cranial cruciate ligament disease, thoracolumbar intervertebral disc disease and cervical spondylomyelopathy. A survey of veterinarians (n = 61) was conducted to elicit impaired welfare weights for 35 welfare impediments. Paired comparison was the primary method to elicit weights, whereas visual analogue scale and time trade-off approaches rescaled these weights onto the desired scale, from 0 (the optimal welfare imaginable) to 1 (the worst welfare imaginable). WALYs for the 10 diseases were then estimated using the impaired welfare weights and published epidemiological data on disease impacts. Welfare impediment &quot;amputation: one limb&quot; and &quot;respiratory distress&quot; had the lowest and highest impaired welfare weights at 0.134 and 0.796, rescaled with a visual analogue scale, and 0.117 and 0.857, rescaled with time trade-off. Among the 10 diseases, thoracolumbar intervertebral disc disease and atopic dermatitis had the smallest and greatest adverse impact on dogs with WALYs at 2.83 (95% UI: 1.54-3.94) and 9.73 (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 7.17-11.8), respectively. This study developed the WALY metric and demonstrated that it summarises welfare compromise as perceived by humans and total impact of diseases in individual animals. The WALY can potentially be used for prioritisation of disease eradication and control programs, quantification of population welfare and longitudinal surveillance of animal welfare in companion animals and may possibly be extended to production animals.&lt;/p&gt;</p