Animal Welfare in Veterinary Practice E-Book

James Yeates

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: UFAW Animal Welfare
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 333

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A practical guide to help veterinarians improve the welfare of their patients in their everyday work. A concise and accessible introduction to welfare that is both interesting and valuable in practice.

The book describes ways to evaluate patients, develop in-practice quality of life assessments, resolve difficult clinical dilemmas, and turn good decisions into real welfare outcomes. It reviews available scientific information, legal issues and ethical dilemmas, and relates these to everyday case studies throughout. It provides ways for all veterinary professionals to develop their animal welfare understanding, without assuming prior knowledge, while advancing the wisdom and abilities of experienced practitioners.

Key features:

• Presents practical and realistic methods for working with owners to improve patients' welfare within the constraints of everyday practice.
• Provides useful advice for work within many legal jurisdictions.
• Includes summaries of research, vital references, and further reading sources.
• Key points are recapped at the end of each chapter.

Suitable for all those working in the veterinary and related professions, including veterinarians, veterinary nurses, animal welfare scientists, animal behaviourists, paraprofessionals and lay staff.

Published as a part of the prestigious Wiley-Blackwell – UFAW Animal Welfare series. UFAW, founded 1926, is an internationally recognised, independent, scientific and educational animal welfare charity. For full details of all titles available in the UFAW series, please visit www.wiley.com/go/ufaw.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword: Carl Padgett

Foreword: David Main

Preface

1 Patients

1.1 Animal Welfare Accounts

1.2 Animal Welfare Accountability

1.3 Animal Welfare Responsibility

1.4 Legal and Professional Responsibilities

1.5 Science

1.6 Achieving and Avoiding

1.7 Feelings

1.8 Inferring Feelings

1.9 Pathological Causes of Feelings

1.10 Iatrogenic Causes of Feelings

1.11 Beyond Health

Selected further reading

2 Clients

2.1 Owner Causes of Feelings

2.2 Owners and the Law

2.3 Owner–Animal Relationships

2.4 Owner Decision-Making

2.5 Owner Benefits to Improving Welfare

2.6 Owner Barriers and Biases

2.7 Vet–Client Relationships

2.8 Money Problems

Selected further reading

3 Welfare Assessment

3.1 Patient Assessment

INFORMATION

  3.2 Histories

  3.3 Clinical Examinations

  3.4 Further Investigations

INTERPRETATION

  3.5 Empathy and Knowledge

  3.6 Induction and Deduction

EVALUATION

  3.7 Qualitative Welfare Evaluation

  3.8 Quantitative Welfare Evaluation

  3.9 Future Welfare Evaluation

Selected further reading

4 Clinical Choices

4.1 Welfare-Focused Choices

THE ANIMALS

  4.2 Individual Patients

  4.3 Decisions Affecting Multiple Patients

  4.4 Decisions Also Affecting Non-Patient Animals

THE HUMANS

  4.5 Oneself

  4.6 Colleagues

  4.7 Clients

  4.8 Joint Decision-Making

Selected further reading

5 Achieving Animal Welfare Goals

5.1 Tackling Pathological and Iatrogenic Causes of Feelings

5.2 Tackling Owner Causes of Feelings

5.3 Improving Owners’ Assessments

5.4 Improving Owners’ Evaluations and Choices

5.5 Improving Owners’ Achievements

5.6 Money Solutions

5.7 Legal Solutions

5.8 Colleagues

5.9 Working on Oneself

Selected further reading

6 Beyond the Clinic

6.1 Beyond Patients

6.2 Beyond Clients

6.3 Professional Cooperation

6.4 Professional Collaboration

6.5 Professional Barriers and Biases

6.6 Veterinary Welfare Surveillance

6.7 Veterinary Welfare Research

6.8 Veterinary Welfare Education

6.9 Next Steps

Selected further reading

References

Index

The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

UFAW, founded in 1926, is an internationally ­recognised, independent, scientific and educational animal welfare charity that promotes high ­standards of welfare for farm, companion, laboratory and captive wild animals, and for those animals with which we interact in the wild. It works to improve animals’ lives by:

Funding and publishing developments in the science and technology that underpin advances in animal welfare;

Promoting education in animal care and welfare;

Providing information, organising meetings and publishing books, videos, articles, technical reports and the journal

Animal Welfare

;

Providing expert advice to government departments and other bodies and helping to draft and amend laws and guidelines;

Enlisting the energies of animal keepers, scientists, veterinarians, lawyers and others who care about animals.

‘Improvements in the care of animals are not now likely to come of their own accord, merely by wishing them: there must be research … and it is in sponsoring research of this kind, and making its results widely known, that UFAW performs one of its most valuable services.’Sir Peter Medawar CBE FRS, 8th May 1957Nobel Laureate (1960), Chairman of the UFAW Scientific Advisory Committee (1951–1962)UFAW relies on the generosity of the public through legacies and donations to carry out its work, ­improving the welfare of animals now and in the future. For further information about UFAW and how you can help promote and support its work, please contact us at the following address:

Universities Federation for Animal WelfareThe Old School, Brewhouse Hill, Wheathampstead, Herts AL4 8AN, UKTel: 01582 831818 Fax: [phone] Website: www.ufaw.org.ukEmail: [email protected]’s aim regarding the UFAW/Wiley-Blackwell Animal Welfare book series is to promote interest and debate in the subject and to disseminate information relevant to improving the welfare of kept animals and of those harmed in the wild through human agency. The books in this series are the works of their authors, and the views they express do not necessarily reflect the views of UFAW.

This edition first published 2013© 2013 by Universities Federation for Animal WelfareSeries editors: James K. Kirkwood and Robert C. Hubrecht

Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yeates, James, 1980–Animal welfare in veterinary practice / James Yeates.p. ; cm. – (UFAW animal welfare series)Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4443-3487-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Animal welfare. 2. Veterinary medicine. I. Universities Federation for Animal Welfare.II. Title. III. Series: UFAW animal welfare series. [DNLM: 1. Animal Welfare. 2. Veterinary Medicine–ethics. HV 4708]HV4708.Y43 2013636.089–dc23

2012031336

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Cover image: courtesy of James YeatesCover design by Sandra Heath

Foreword

‘The veterinary profession is the ultimate arbiter and protector of animal welfare’. This is a mantra I’ve heard many times, usually from the mouths of veterinary surgeons. Is this an objective statement of fact or a means of professional self-protection? It’s certainly a laudable aspirational goal; but do veterinary practitioners work to fulfil it, or do they merely hold on to it to displace the disappointment of everyday reality that animal keepers inevitably hold the balance of power reducing the influential scope of the individual vet and the wider profession?

The UK’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons 2012 Code of Professional Conduct includes the following declaration made by all veterinary surgeons as a condition of admission: ‘I PROMISE AND SOLEMNLY DECLARE that I will pursue the work of my profession with integrity and accept my responsibilities to the public, my clients, the profession and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and that, ABOVE ALL, my constant endeavour will be to ensure the health and welfare of animals committed to my care’. The upper case letters are not my addition; ‘ABOVE ALL’, UK veterinary surgeons must work to ensure animal health and welfare, a standard that fits well with the aspiration described above. Many other countries have oaths for their veterinary surgeons similarly stating the importance of animal welfare, so that this should be the case seems not to be in contention. The question remains – what does the profession actually do to achieve it?

That the veterinary profession lost ground in the advancement of animal welfare science over a number of years is beyond doubt. At practitioner level, concentrating on the immediacy of ill-health as the prime indicator of good or bad welfare could almost be viewed as the course of least resistance and it is easy to see how the profession fell into this trap while science moved on around it. Good or bad animal health is undoubtedly an indicator of good or bad animal welfare, but assessing animal welfare is so much more than merely benchmarking animal health. This failing has thankfully been recognised and there is much work going on to redress the balance.

To achieve real improvements in animal welfare, veterinary practitioners need appropriate tools to influence the behaviour of animal keepers. These are not simply those of recognition, diagnosis and measurement familiar to those in practice, they also include objective and productive methods of assessment, reflection and communication techniques that have been less commonly adopted. This book describes the concept of a ‘welfare account’ where each veterinary surgeon (and indeed the veterinary profession collectively and each client/animal keeper) should manage their account with deposits and withdrawals in a similar way to a monetary bank account, aiming to remain in credit and avoid being overdrawn with negative welfare outcomes by adapting old tools and adopting new ones. It points practitioners in a direction to deliver the RCVS oath, noting pragmatically that ‘Practitioners should not be ashamed of the fact that they make money, enjoy their job, learn from their previous cases, maintain good public relations and have not been sued, when these are achieved as aside effectof welfare-focused veterinary work’. A welcome recognition of the place in which practitioners find themselves in what they would describe as the real world.

I first met James Yeates when he attended a British Veterinary Association: Animal Welfare Foundation course for final year undergraduate veterinary students in 2003, aimed at addressing everyday animal welfare challenges that occur in first opinion practice and achieving positive outcomes. His contributions to discussion were expansive, well thought through and stimulatory in a way I had not seen in delegates at this course before or since. In this book it is encouraging to see that this refreshing and challenging approach has been further developed.

When attempting to act as the final arbiter and guardian of animal welfare, practitioners should reflect on what they do in their every day working life that achieves that aim. This book provides tools to realise the aspiration.

Carl Padgett, BVMS, CertCHP, MRCVS

Foreword

Fresh-faced, enthusiastic but naive veterinary students often passionately believe that they can make a difference and improve welfare of animals committed to their care. Thankfully, provided we equip students with the necessary knowledge base and skills, then during their professional career they can make a ­positive impact on the lives of their patients and their patients’ owners. This positive influence and the generally high esteem placed on the profession by the general public ensure the professional life of a veterinary surgeon is still hugely rewarding.

However, scratch beneath the surface and many veterinary surgeons are frustrated by their lack of ability to persuade owners to do the right thing for their animals. The simple truth is that owners usually retain the day to day responsibility for the care of their animals. Therefore, often the veterinary surgeon’s ability to improve welfare depends more on their ability to influence client behaviour than on any clinical knowledge. Whilst waiting for Utopia, we probably ought to also recognise that not everybody is working towards the same common goals. Concern for animal welfare has to compete with other values ranging from the rational, such as the sustainability of our rural communities, to the irrational, such as the aesthetic considerations of the show ring.

This book takes a very positive and pragmatic approach to this challenge. The overriding theme is ‘how can the veterinary profession promote better animal welfare’? Somebody not familiar with the veterinary profession would perhaps wonder how a whole book can be dedicated to this topic. Surely that is fundamental to what veterinary surgeons do every day? The critical proposition raised by this book is that the veterinary profession should review how it can deliver on this assumed animal advocate role. Society expects the profession to promote the interests of animals. What does that actually mean in practice?

Refreshingly James Yeates does not dwell on the academic debate over welfare definitions, rather he refers to the ‘vague’ concern for animals’ interests. He does, however, move the debate forward on several different counts including welfare assessment, consideration of owners’ interests, and the potential relationships between owners and veterinary professionals.

In Chapter 2, James states that owners are part of the problem as well as part of the solution. I have also heard it stated that the veterinary profession is also part of the problem as well as the solution. During discussions of contentious animal welfare issues, I have often felt that veterinary surgeons are all too willing to take on the devil’s advocate position. It sometimes seems easier to represent the views of their most sceptical client rather than try to promote a more pro-active welfare-focused view. This book tackles these issues head on and attempts to provide solutions. It should be read widely within the profession and should stimulate further reflection and discussion upon the profession’s assumed role as an animal advocate.

David Main, BVetMed, PhD, CertVR, DWEL, DipECAWBM (AWSEL), MRCVS

Preface

Veterinary professionals are concerned about animal welfare and want to make a difference. This concern for animals is why most of us joined, stay in and enjoy the profession. There is an enormous potential to improve animals’ welfare using the knowledge, enthusiasm, intelligence and compassion of the veterinary professionals. This is a global opportunity, although the statuses of animals and the veterinary professions differ between countries and areas. This potential has begun to be increasingly captured and developed, and there are many more opportunities that we can fulfil as the profession develops its role in animal welfare in all societies. Many other people are doing very many things. This book hopes to contribute to, stimulate and assist with realising these opportunities.

At the same time, concern for animals is why many people dislike practice or leave the profession. Some of the most intelligent, caring and concerned people stop helping animals, precisely because they are concerned about animals. This attrition may be due to those veterinary professionals who decide to specialise in animal welfare become animal welfare scientists. Or it may be due to the frustration borne of the seeming endlessness of welfare problems, with each day bringing more of the same problems despite the work of the day before.

Veterinary professionals need tools to deal with obstacles such as financial limitations, lack of time, clients’ resistance and owners’ non-compliance. So this book aims at providing practical and realistic methods for working with owners to improve patients’ welfare, within the realistic constraints of everyday practice. Veterinary professionals also need to work within the law so, while nothing in this book should be taken as legal guidance, it tries to provide advice that is useful for work within many jurisdictions. The book also tries to be realistic about what busy veterinary professionals can read, by summarising other research, including only vital references, providing further reading sources and recapping key points at the end of each chapter. Where there are easy and proven answers, they are given. Where there are not easy options, the book gives new ideas and general advice to help each veterinary professional to make their personal decision about their own cases.

Veterinary professionals have to deal with welfare issues in ways that they feel are well-informed, well-reasoned and well-intentioned. So this book provides ways for veterinary professionals to develop their animal welfare understanding, but without them having to become animal welfare research scientists. Science is (as we shall see) vitally important, but veterinary professionals need to be especially aware of the aspects that are important for practice, without trying to recreate the excellent animal welfare literature that already exists. Conversely, I have tried to explain or contextualise the veterinary terms for non-veterinary readers.

Veterinary professionals also want to engage with the bigger picture. So this book also addresses ways in which veterinary professionals can easily, feasibly and realistically contribute to improving animal welfare on a wider scale, through personal efforts and professional bodies. Veterinary professionals can get the best of both worlds by helping both individual patients and making overall progress.

These ideas come from academic research, personal experience and a lot of discussions. As such, I hope it is a contribution to and from all veterinary profes­sionals. I have tended to use we and our to incorporate all colleagues who work with or within veterinary practice: veterinary surgeons, nurses, scientists, behaviourists, paraprofessionals and lay staff.

The book begins by considering our relationship with our animal patients (Chapter 1), before moving on to consider the other main stakeholders, our clients (Chapter 2). With the main groundwork set out, the chapters can move through the process modelled on how clinical decisions can be made and effected, through animal welfare assessment (Chapter 3), choosing a treatment option (Chapter 4) and achieving the desired goals (Chapter 5). These ideas can then be applied to other animals, people and issues (Chapter 6). Each chapter provides a framework for people to read while considering their own circumstances and concerns.

By no means is this book the work of the sole author. Many people, from many countries, have contributed ideas. Especial thanks to international students, co-lecturers and delegates at undergraduate and postgraduate courses, conferences and seminars around the world, teaching whom has helped me to refine many of the ideas in this book. I would also like to thank those who have discussed drafts of this book. Thanks to practitioners (who mainly advised to make it shorter and include fewer references), especially Nicola Ackerman, Lucy Hamblin, Myfanwy Hill, Richard Hillman, Iain Richards and members of the BVA Ethics and Welfare Group and Council, BSAVA Scientific Committee and SPVS Council. Thanks to animal welfare scientists (who mainly advised to expand points and include more references), especially James Kirkwood, Frank McMillan and Sean Wensley (especially for the last chapter). Thank you to all who gave photographs, as credited, especially Fiona, Jane and Mandy. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for useful and positive comments. Finally, belated thanks to many people, but especially David Main, David Morton, Carl Padgett and Peter Sandøe for help and support back when I first started thinking about animal welfare.

1

Patients

1.1 Animal Welfare Accounts

Veterinary professionals are concerned about animal welfare. Animal welfare, loosely defined, is about what is good and bad for animals – what is important for them to achieve and what is important for them to avoid. Veterinary work is about achieving states that are good for animals, such as health and ­enjoyment of life, and avoiding states that are bad, such as pain and illness. So core aims of veterinary work overlap considerably, if not entirely, with animal welfare concerns. This is why many of us chose to train in veterinary science, medicine or nursing and why most of us wanted to work within the profession.

Every person in the world has an effect on animal welfare. How they treat ­animals they own or meet; what food and clothes they buy; which charities they give money to; what they enjoy as entertainment and their environmental impact can have an effect on the lives of many animals. This effect may be sometimes beneficial. It may also be harmful. Each person probably effects a combination of harm and benefit (even the kindest people do some harm and even the most evil people may help animals by accident) and has an overall impact on animals’ ­welfare. Each person has an animal welfare account, based on all their welfare impacts. If a person does more harm than good, then they have a negative balance. If a person does more good than harm, this is to their credit.

Those of us in veterinary practice are especially likely to have significant impacts on the welfare of patients and other animals. Sometimes, we have a positive impact by lessening the harms caused by other people or by natural processes such as ­disease. At other times, we have a negative impact by harming animals or helping other people to harm them. Our veterinary roles provide us with animal welfare capital, which we can use as an investment to do good but which also gives us opportunities to harm animals – just as borrowing against capital can allow people to incur greater debts. Each of us should make our own animal welfare account as healthy and positive as possible.

Figure 1.1 Surgery can cause harms as well as provide benefits. (Courtesy of RSPCA Bristol.)

Having a healthy animal welfare account requires maximising welfare credit and minimising welfare debt. Harms should be minimised wherever possible (just as it is not sensible to borrow more than you need). Some harm may be necessary in order to gain bigger welfare benefits, for example when surgery causes pain but cures the animal of a painful condition (which we can think of as an investment). At other times, welfare benefits can be obtained only by taking certain risks, for example where surgery risks causing neuromas or phantom limb pains (Figure 1.1), and we may have to speculate to accumulate.

This approach suggests that we should make every effort to cause good welfare while avoiding causing harms. We could think of this in terms of our overall impact on animal welfare, a sort of animal welfare footprint. But it seems better to think of it as each leaving a legacy – good or bad – on animal welfare. Veterinary work provides great opportunities to leave a valuable and significant legacy, and this book may provide some additional suggestions to help readers do even more than they already do.

Figure 1.2 Key relationships in veterinary practice.

Whether we consider animal welfare to relate to animals’ feelings, their ­treatment, their biology or their lifestyle, we can be confident that these things are important for animals in some way. This makes veterinary professionals well placed to determine and to achieve animal welfare goals as well. We have an understanding of biological science, interact daily with the pet-owning public and with the animals themselves, and are respected sources of advice in the community. The different people within veterinary practice and professions have different roles and different opportunities to help animals. But we all face similar situations and have the same aims as veterinary professionals.

In this role as veterinary professionals, we face a number of pressures and ­tensions. We see welfare issues every day, and many are recurrences of seemingly unending problems, despite our good work. We are personally involved in and affected by the pressures, tensions and conflicts we experience. These can cause stress, disillusionment and anger. Some people even leave the veterinary professions, and this is both terribly sad for them and a great loss for animals – especially if it is some of the most welfare-concerned people who are vulnerable to these stresses. We have relationships not only with patients but also with clients (Figure 1.2). In many cases, achieving our animal welfare goals helps people. It can help owners who want their animals’ lives, health or behaviour to be improved. It can also help veterinary professionals by reducing the personal and moral stresses and improving profitability. In other cases, we have to balance the conflicting demands. As individual practitioners, we have to balance our wish to achieve our animal welfare goals with client requirements, legal constraints and public concerns. And as professionals, we have to balance being advocates of ­animal welfare with other goals such as benefitting human society and helping each other. This book looks at how we can best improve animal welfare while respecting these constraints.

We also face conflicts between animals. For example, concern for our patients would lead us to perform caesarians where necessitated by breed conformation. But performing such caesarians perpetuates the problem and allows those ­conformational traits to continue, leading to increased need for caesarians. In this case, veterinary professionals are both part of the solution and part of the problem. Maintaining a healthy welfare account requires balancing these concerns. In addition, when we do cause harm, either deliberately or through helping our patients, we can improve our welfare account by paying something back. For example, if we perpetuate poor husbandry or breeding (even with the best intentions), then we should offset that harm through proactive efforts to promote better practices.

We can maximise our animal welfare account and solve welfare dilemmas by considering many important issues, including the accountability that veterinary professionals have towards animal welfare (discussed in Sections 1.2 and 1.11), our responsibilities (Sections 1.3 and 1.4), the use of science (Section 1.5) and ideas of what is good for animals (Sections 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9 and 1.10).

1.2 Animal Welfare Accountability

Veterinary professionals have a special role within society that makes their animal welfare accounts especially important and prominent. During the veterinary ­profession’s 250 years, it has become increasingly prominent as a force to improve animal welfare and is increasingly held to account for how it treats animals and how animals are treated by society as a whole. Each veterinary professional has a duty to play their part in helping their profession to fulfil its responsibilities to society.

Modern veterinary practice can be traced back to horse marshals’ and farriers’ development of medical treatments and surgical procedures, such as firing, ­bleeding, castrating and tail-docking. By the eighteenth century, such therapies were routinely applied to cattle, sheep and pigs as rising human populations and breeding strategies made individual animals increasingly valuable.

Veterinary practitioners gained a prominent position in safeguarding animal health, but they were far from a profession. This waited upon scientific and medical developments disseminated through education beginning with the first veterinary course in Lyon in the 1760 s, followed by others in Alfort, Turin, Copenhagen, Vienna, Dresden, Gottingen, Budapest, Hannover, Padua, Skara and London, and later schools in Toronto, Montreal, Ithaca, Iowa, Santa Catalina, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Olinda.

Professional regulation addressed the opportunities for charlatanism (Porter 1992; Hall 1994), with the establishment of professional bodies such as the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) in 1844, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in 1863, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) in 1949 and the Brazilian “Conselho Federal de Medicina Veterinária” (CFMV) in 1968. These provided society with a guarantee of knowledge, ability and professionalism.

These developments paralleled changes in society at large that increased the respect for animals. Political changes led to widening social progress and ­protection of vulnerable groups such as slaves, women and children. Scientific discoveries highlighted the phenotypic and genetic similarities between humans and other animals. Animals began to gain legal protection, with increasingly progressive laws against specific cruel practices, abuse and vivisection.

Figure 1.3 Societal relationships in veterinary practice.

By the start of the twentieth century, veterinary professionals had a number of societal responsibilities based not only on their key relationships with owners and patients, but on their wider societal relationships with other animals, governments, other veterinary professionals and society at large (Figure 1.3). Alongside ­veterinary professionals’ primary relationships with animals and clients, the profession also had other vital duties to wider society, such as protecting public health. In addition, the professional status of veterinary practice created new responsibilities for individual practitioners towards their profession and to society.

Since the early twentieth century, there has been a golden age of developments within veterinary science, often paralleling developments in human medicine such as antibiotics, fluid therapy and painkillers and other forms of analgesia. Therapies were often developed on animal experimental subjects, applied to human medical patients, and then adapted to animal medical patients. These developments ­stimulated the development of veterinary disciplines such as imaging including ultrasound and radiography, immunology to study the bodies’ reactions to disease, epidemiology to study the spread of disease, molecular biology to understand the body on a subcellular level, genetics and chemotherapy.

On the one hand, technological developments allowed higher levels of care and, combined with increased treatment of companion animals (Figure 1.4), increased the transference of techniques and protocols from human medicine. On the other hand, technological developments made it feasible to keep animals in high-­production systems. Veterinary professionals could prescribe pharmaceuticals, such as vaccinations and antimicrobials (e.g. penicillins), and operations, such as tail-docking and de-beaking, in order to address system health problems. In some cases, scientific developments went further and advanced methods to increase ­productivity, such as the use of artificial insemination and growth promoters like bovine somatotropin.

Figure 1.4 The increased importance of companion animals has altered veterinary work. (Courtesy of David Carpenter.)

Such changes in modern farming methods prompted a reconsideration of animal welfare issues, which were eloquently and influentially raised by critiques of widespread husbandry practices such as Ruth Harrison in the 1960s and Peter Singer in the 1970s. This led to the creation of animal welfare science as a discipline, promoted especially by the activities of Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) since the 1920s, the launch of the Brambell Report in 1965 and the establishment of the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) in 1979. Animal welfare is now an established scientific subject, with its own international journals (e.g. Animal Welfare), learned organisations (e.g. UFAW) and academic courses. The development of animal welfare science resulted in a distinction between animal welfare and animal health. Animals could have their basic physiological and medical needs met despite suffering significant welfare compromises such as frustration, boredom, loneliness and anxiety.

Some people feel the veterinary profession now has a rather poorly defined place in contemporary animal welfare debates due to the implication of ­practitioners in intensive farming, the veterinary profession’s focus on health matters and the separation of health and welfare. Many individual veterinary professionals have contributed considerably to the development of animal welfare science and to ­policy-making. But they are often a few voices amongst many, and in many ­countries they lack the authority to provide the determinative viewpoint or the most progressive drive on animal welfare issues. Indeed, in many countries the profession is losing its status as an animal welfare authority.

The risk of losing this status comes while the public, and many veterinary ­professionals, still appear to consider veterinary professionals’ role as being to promote animal welfare. Prominent members of veterinary professions have promised to do more for animal welfare and to concern themselves with wider concerns than only health. Several professional bodies have created structures for individual members to help them advance animal welfare through policy-making, education and specialisation.

The veterinary professions are therefore at a time of both high risk and great opportunity. Our development has provided us with a number of social accountabilities to owners, animals, society and each other. But our historical development can only describe what responsibilities we have had; it cannot prescribe what our responsibilities should be in the future. We have the chance now to decide our core responsibilities and what distinguishes our special place as a profession. Society, many owners and most individual practitioners appear to consider that this focus should be beyond animal health, farming productivity and public health. Society, owners and individual practitioners consider that we should be accountable for animal welfare.

1.3 Animal Welfare Responsibility

If everyone has an animal welfare account, then what particular responsibilities do veterinary professionals have? Veterinary professionals have the same general responsibilities to animals as other people but are more accountable because we have more opportunities to cause greater harms and fewer excuses because of our greater knowledge. But veterinary professionals also have duties that laypeople do not.

In many countries, the licence to practise as a veterinary professional is limited to certain people. This restrains other people from conducting potentially harmful procedures. This restriction is beneficial when it stops untrained people from ­conducting potentially harmful procedures or misusing drugs. But this restriction also places an additional responsibility on those who can provide procedures to do so when necessary, since nobody else can provide them. Such veterinary responsibilities come with our veterinary privileges.

Often veterinary duties are specific responsibilities towards our patients (Yeates 2009a). By taking patients into our care, we are undertaking to work towards maximising their welfare. We have particular duties to those animals, which should motivate us to look after them and provide a certain level of treatment. We have duties to owners who have entrusted their animals into the care of veterinary ­professionals with good faith that those animals will be looked after.

Figure 1.5 Value-based approaches to veterinary decision-making.

Veterinary professionals have social responsibilities because they have joined a profession where animal welfare concern is expected (Rollin 2006a). Animal welfare responsibilities might be explicitly implied by professional regulations or implicitly required by public expectations. Public expectations include those of society and of other veterinary professionals, whose cooperation and professional relationships are based on that assumption.

Some veterinary professionals specifically promise concern for animal welfare. In the USA, veterinary surgeons may swear the oath of the AVMA, which was recently changed to include a promise “to use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health and welfare, the prevention and relief of animal suffering …” (AVMA 2011). In Brazil, veterinary surgeons may swear the oath of the CFMV, which includes a promise to “apply my knowledge to scientific and technological development for the benefit of the health and welfare of ­animals …” (CFMV 2002). Veterinary professional bodies also often claim to look after ­animal welfare: by making such a claim, they undertake a responsibility to fulfil it.

Veterinary professionals also have a responsibility to care for animals simply because we care about animal welfare. Most applicants for veterinary courses and jobs are highly intelligent and motivated individuals, who could have chosen careers with shorter hours, less stress and better pay. Veterinary professionals have already made a choice to sacrifice their personal interests so that they are in a position to help animals. Veterinary surgeons have a responsibility towards animal welfare because they have taken that responsibility on.

Veterinary professionals therefore have a duty to perform welfare-focused ­practice. This approach is an alternative to vet-focused practice, which considers the interests of oneself, one’s colleagues and one’s profession, or client-focused practice, which considers the interests of clients, although these three can overlap (Figure 1.5). Veterinary professionals do have duties to clients and themselves, but this book considers that good veterinary practice is predominantly welfare-focused. One is not a good surgeon simply by knowing where to cut. Being a good surgeon involves good decision-making, providing good analgesia and post-­operative care and knowing when not to operate. The same animal welfare ­responsibilities apply in all areas of practice.

1.4 Legal and Professional Responsibilities

Our responsibilities to animal welfare are often underscored by our legal ­responsibilities. The law provides a backdrop for all our actions, and anxiety about legal consequences can cause unnecessary stress to many veterinary professionals. While this book cannot give legal advice for particular countries, it is possible to sketch certain types of rules that relate how veterinary professionals treat animals alongside the client-focused and owner-focused legal issues discussed in Section 2.2.

Some laws apply to governments and institutions that make decisions. Some countries such as India and Germany include animals in their constitutions. Some international agreements also mandate concern for animals, such as the Treaty of the European Union and the European conventions for the protection of pet animals and animals kept for farming purposes. These laws directly recognise animals’ status and prescribe a level of protection. Governments then make laws that apply directly to people, including many elements of criminal law. These laws are interpreted by judicial courts, which make specific decisions about particular cases, with the result that different animals may have inconsistent levels of legal ­protection.

Many laws proscribe things being done. In most, if not all countries, anti-cruelty legislation is amongst the first pieces of legislation that are brought in. Several countries’ laws prevent various negative outcomes, such as causing unnecessary suffering, killing animals without good reason, dog fighting or performing certain mutilations. Other laws prescribe positive outcomes, such as caring for an owner’s animals, mandating disease control or maintaining biosecurity.

Other laws require things to be done only under certain conditions. For example, many countries’ laws state that mutilations such as tail-docking can be performed only on certain animals by certain people using certain methods. Many countries permit experimentation on (vertebrate) animals only under a licence and following ethical review of proposed projects. Several countries require licences for breeding certain animals, owning pet shops, riding schools or boarding kennels or slaughtering an animal for public consumption. Some laws mean people need a licence to own certain animals, such as dangerous animals and farm animals. Often licences are given only under certain conditions, for example that people are trained or have appropriate facilities. More and more countries are requiring licences before people can own any animals at all.

Most countries with an established veterinary profession also have laws that restrict who can practise as veterinary surgeons or veterinary nurses. Often these laws require veterinary professionals to have certain qualifications (e.g. a ­recognised veterinary degree). Limiting the licence to practise has an additional benefit of allowing the regulation of veterinary professionals. This is often achieved by making membership of the profession conditional upon following certain rules, which are usually described in a deontology or code of practice. These professional rules may prohibit certain welfare-unfriendly procedures, such as kidney transplantation from live donors. They may make other welfare-friendly procedures mandatory, such as emergency first aid. They may also prescribe general approaches such as ensuring the welfare of animals committed to the veterinary professional’s care.

Laws and professional rules usually coincide with what society thinks acceptable or unacceptable (e.g. murder). Other laws coordinate action in ways that society thinks useful (e.g. which side of the road to drive on). Often our laws do not tell us what to do but allow a range of options from which we can choose the most acceptable. Consequently, most people follow the law most of the time.

Sometimes the law appears to conflict with what we think is the right thing to do for a particular case. However, this appearance is often misleading. Fortunately, courts often accept a reasonable excuse as a legitimate defence and many prosecutors only proceed when prosecution is in the public interest. For example, a stray animal may be presented in extreme suffering. Thinking only of a law against destruction of property would suggest it should not be given the euthanasia it needs. But the need to avoid unnecessary suffering should provide a legal defence against prosecution for reasonable efforts to prevent suffering. Veterinary professionals should not be overly concerned by possible legal ramifications. For example, it may be legitimate to euthanase a stray animal that is suffering only moderately but which is unlikely to be claimed and is unsuitable for rehoming or releasing.

Nevertheless, there may be cases where we might think the law is wrong. Laws may proscribe ways to improve welfare (e.g. stealing someone else’s animal) or permit actions that worsen welfare (e.g. shooting or irresponsible breeding). Sometimes following the law may lead to animal welfare compromises, and improving welfare would require breaking the law. Veterinary professionals have a vital role in evaluating the current laws and professional rules and suggesting improvements. This means that welfare-focused decision-making must look beyond simply analysing what our country’s law or professional body says.

1.5 Science

Veterinary professionals’ education and decisions are prominently based on ­knowledge generated by the sciences, including animal welfare science and veterinary science. Science is often described as a single way of thinking, but it actually uses several different methods. Hypothetico-deductive approaches start with ­scientists generating a general hypothesis about the world (e.g. that swans are white). From this, scientists generate more precise and testable hypotheses (e.g. that the next animal of genus Cygnus will reflect light of all visual wavelengths). They then obtain data that either support or refute that hypothesis. Inductive methods involve data being collected without any explicit, specific prior hypotheses and analysed to identify relationships such as risk factors. Both methods have ­advantages and disadvantages and are often combined.