Welfare check
How can the same horsekeeping situation be unacceptable to one person but completely fine to another? New research from Canada seeks to answer this question and others.
How can the same horsekeeping situation be unacceptable to one person but completely fine to another? New research from Canada seeks to answer this question and others.
Some questions about equine welfare are easy to answer: Nearly everyone agrees on the need to help an emaciated horse confined to a barren dirt pen piled high with manure, for example. But far more common are the gray areas of the welfare discussion: Does stabling a horse by himself place him under severe psychological stress? It is cruel to put an adult rider on a naughty pony? Is it a subtle form of abuse to require a calm and compliant horse to spend hours in the lesson ring endlessly circling with beginner riders aboard? In many cases, the answers aren’t so clear-cut.
When such debates crop up in tack rooms and barn aisles, experienced horsekeepers may never reach agreement. But when these questions are part of an effort to establish welfare guidelines and legislation, the search for answers takes on something close to urgency, requiring a methodical, and when possible, empirical approach. That’s what a group of researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is attempting to do.
Led by Cordelie DuBois as part of her doctoral research, the Guelph team is sorting through the strong and varied opinions of equine professionals to collect quantifiable data to assist in understanding percep- tions of equine welfare issues.
Using a multi-round survey technique, DuBois and her team developed a series of welfare-related vignettes that present hypothetical horsekeeping scenarios in just a few sentences. These scenarios were based on the most pressing welfare issues identified by equine professionals in a previous portion of this survey and reflect situations that may occur both on and off the farm. The equine professionals (14 in number and considered “experts” for the purposes of the survey) were recruited to participate in this project, which ultimately culminated in presentation of the vignettes in the survey’s third and final round.
Professionals were sought for the project for a very specific reason, says DuBois: “We were looking to examine the perspective of people who are traditionally viewed as experts in the community---the people horse owners and barn managers might turn to for advice and guidance.” To be considered a professional, the respondents had to hold some type of official accreditation from a professional organization and have more than 10 years of experience in their position. The group included farriers, veterinarians, accredited massage therapists and equine dentists, as well as law-enforcement humane officers with experience in equine welfare cases.
For the study, the equine professionals were asked to assign a rank to the level of welfare concern associated with each vignette based on a scale from 0 (meaning the horse’s welfare is not compromised) to 5 (meaning the horse is in distress that requires immediate intervention). They were also asked to explain their assessment and describe what may have motivated the actions of the caretakers in the scenarios.
The researchers then combed through those responses, looking for common phrases or ideas. “Our goal was to gain insight into how professionals evaluate horse welfare, which situations were considered the most ‘welfare-compromising’ and what professionals believed were the underlying causes of those situations. With that information, we can better identify areas in the industry that need attention and, specifically, where more education might be beneficial.”
But even when removed from the realm of academic research, data analysis and regulatory goals, the vignettes DuBois developed can be the basis for a meaningful examination of what exactly we mean by equine welfare. Here is a sampling of the vignettes used in the study. Please note that they are presented in gender- and geography-neutral terms to reduce variables that may influence a reader’s response.
Read and rank the vignettes for yourself on the 0 to 5 scale (remember 0 indicates no welfare issue and 5 indicates the horse is in distress and needs immediate intervention). Then read how the experts viewed them. How do your impressions compare to a larger group? The vignettes and the data they’ve generated for this study provide fertile ground for thought, discussion and debate about the gray areas of equine welfare.