AWC_Introduction

Welcome to Animal Welfare Conversations. The podcast for anyone interested in all aspects of animal welfare. Join us as we talk to people working towards a common goal to improve animal welfare.

We'll chat to veterinary surgeons, vet nurses, animal owners, conservationists, and others who have an important part to play in the lives of pets, farm or zoo animals, and wildlife.

I'm Mary Fraser, and along with my husband, Simon Girling, we make up Girling and Fraser Limited, who are kindly supporting these podcasts.

I started out as a vet in mixed practice. But then moved on to education, academia, the corporate world innovation, and even human medical education. I'm your host for this first series, and am delighted to introduce some amazing guests. Simon will join us towards the end of the first series. As we review the conversations and try to make sense of these different discussions. I'm really excited about the guests that we have lined up for you. We'll be chatting to vet nurses and vets in the UK. And in Australia. Comparing animal welfare across the world. We have animal welfare experts. We have authors. charities, medics, and others. So it's going to be an interesting conversation.

I’m going to start off this conversation by talking to vet nurses who have a sometimes overlooked role to play in animal welfare. So within every discussion we're going to have a running question. ‘What does animal welfare mean to you?’ And at the end of the series. We're going to see if it can be defined. I think not. But we'll see what happens. To kick things off. We set a challenge on social media, asking our followers what animal welfare meant to them. Responses were varied. ranging from the environment that we keep animals in, allowing natural behaviour, through to giving animals choice. Some of the comments jumped out at me. So, I'm going to name drop a few people.

So first of all, Adina Valentine. For Adina good welfare is multifaceted.  In a clinical setting, its ensuring that all treatments, investigations, diagnostic sampling, etc., is patient, centric, and that we don't push the individual past its physiological or psychological threshold. We have to consider the animal's well-being, and that's more important than getting an answer quickly. We also need to think about the environment that the animal is kept in the noise, the temperature, the lighting, maintaining circadian rhythms, and allowing rest periods, and of course incorporate the 5 freedoms and the 5 domains.

Another respondent, H M Stapleton said that good welfare goes beyond the basic welfare needs of the animal. It ensures both the physical and mental state of the animal are taken care of and supported in an environment where they can thrive. It's going above and beyond to prevent disease, mentally stimulate the animal and allow it to display natural behaviours.

Theresa Elms had an interesting take on this. Good welfare doesn't look any different to that of humans. That's an interesting point which I probably will come back to later on.

Comments from Iva said that it was a complex issue. Lots of points could be made. and that we have to recognize sentience followed by an ability to express natural behaviour, the right to live a pain, free existence, and, where possible, in a natural environment.

Benedikte Ranum said that it starts with a shift in the mindset and the language that we use. So at home. It's about having animal companions rather than pets. and in farming it's encouraging natural behaviours rather than focusing on health and survivability.

And then Joe Bailey, who will be joining us as a guest later on, said simply, it comes down to giving animals choice.

So throughout these podcasts, we want to give a voice to people who might not otherwise get a chance to highlight the good work that they are doing in relation to improving animal welfare.

There are many unsung heroes out there working with animals, and we hope to shine a light on some of the work that's going on.

So if you want to keep up to date with what's happening, please sign up to our newsletter and subscribe to the podcast, we would love to hear from you, and we hope that you'll join us in The Animal Welfare Conversation.