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What Makes A Pet Happy – Our Duty Of Care

Author: BVA
Posted: Wednesday 13th September, 2006. 00:00:00

The BVA Animal Welfare Foundation (BVA AWF) has produced a practical leaflet designed to enable veterinary surgeons to assist pet owners meet the ‘duty of care’ that next year’s Animal Welfare Act will introduce. In addition to the traditional determinants of a pet’s quality of life (welfare) such as feeding, keeping living quarters clean and ensuring veterinary treatment when sick or injured, in future pet owners will be required to meet other possibly less familiar determinants of their pet’s welfare such as the ability to express normal behaviour.

Veterinary surgeon Kate Kerr, Chair of the BVA AWF Trustees, hopes that the ‘What Makes My Pet Happy’ leaflet will “enable the veterinary profession to communicate to the pet owning public the practical relevance to both them and their pets of the new legislation and just what is meant by duty of care. The leaflet presents what can be quite a complex issue in easily understandable terms using non-technical language” she said. “It explains, for instance, what quality of life is, how it can be assessed, the role of the veterinary surgeon and why the subject is important with reference to the Animal Welfare Act’s duty of care.” Generic in nature, Kate hopes that further leaflets will be produced in the future, focussing on individual species such as rabbits, cats, dogs etc.

“I am” she said “particularly pleased that we have been able to launch the leaflet at the start of today’s two-day international ‘Quality of Life: the Heart of the Matter’ conference, co-organised by the BVA Ethics Committee and UFAW (Universities Federation for Animal Welfare). We are delighted to be associated with the collaboration of these two organisations, which represent a union of two crucial contributors to the subject of animal welfare, animal welfare science and the veterinary profession. Animal welfare science finds solutions to animal welfare problems while veterinary surgeons in their daily work communicate and implement these solutions. Our leaflet is based on this union and will educate pet owners about the quality of life of their pets and encourage them to think about how it can be assessed and provided for.”

The ‘What Makes My Pet Happy” leaflet is available to download from the BVA AWF website at http://www.bva-awf.org.uk. Veterinary practices can obtain copies for the waiting room in batches of 50, free of charge (although a voluntary donation to the BVA AWF towards the cost of postage would be appreciated) from the BVA AWF agents McMillan-Scott while members of the public can request individual copies by contacting BVA AWF direct.

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