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Pet Health and Welfare: Exercise, Enrichment, Nutrition, Training, and Noise
Pet health and welfare depend on more than preventing disease. Proper exercise, human contact, socialization, training, enrichment, nutrition, and appropriate environmental management all contribute to the physical and behavioral well-being of companion animals. Understanding these factors is essential for providing suitable care and maintaining a healthy, comfortable, and welfare-friendly environment for pets.
Pets can add fun, companionship, and a feeling of safety to life:
- Before getting a pet, think carefully about which animal is best for your family.
- What is each family member looking for in a pet?
- Who will take care of it?
- Does anyone have pet allergies?
- What type of animal suits your lifestyle and budget?
Once a pet is owned, it should be kept healthy. It should be taken to a veterinarian if it shows:
- Loss of appetite
- Increased water consumption
- Rapid weight gain or weight loss
- Abnormal behavior
- Lethargy or unusual tiredness
- Difficulty getting up or lying down
- Unusual lumps
Exercise, Human Contact, Socialization, and Training
Some dogs clearly enjoy exercise, but when companion animals are exercised, they also experience exploration, territory marking, and socialization, all of which are likely to contribute to the pleasurable experience of the activity.
The benefits of exercise periods will depend on the exploratory and social opportunities offered to the dogs. Human contact can be very important for them.
Dogs used in research can be trained to cooperate with husbandry and research procedures. Dogs given more human contact time are less nervous (which is good for their welfare), more cooperative, and easier to handle (which is beneficial for staff and researchers).
Non-social Enrichment
The provision of chews, platforms, and visual sight lines should be planned with the dogs’ natural behavior and sensory modalities in mind. Dog appeasement pheromone (DAP) can be used as a means of reducing stress when dogs are placed in unfamiliar circumstances, including when they are taken to veterinary clinics or shelters.
Nutrition, Health, and Behavior
Many dogs are highly motivated by food (chews that taste like food seem to be preferred by dogs). Being overweight carries risks of musculoskeletal and cardiovascular problems and diabetes. Malnutrition, if experienced during development, can lead to behavioral as well as physical abnormalities.
Pet food manufacturers give considerable attention to ensuring that their diets are palatable, as owners are often influenced in their purchasing decisions by their dog’s reaction to food.
Dogs have been used in studies on the effects of diet on behavior and cognitive function as models of human degenerative disorders, as well as to study the effects of diet on companion animals.
Noise
Dogs can generate considerable noise, which can be a potential health problem for humans working in kennels. Given the greater sensitivity of dogs to sound, noise may also be a welfare issue for the dogs themselves. Buildings and husbandry routines should be designed to reduce noise. Group housing is associated with less noise production, which could be a significant benefit in the research setting.
