Learn about the five categories used in animal welfare assessment.

For the first time developed in the 1950s, the Five
Freedoms or Five Principles of Animal Welfare (Five Freedoms) have served as a global standard for animal welfare for many years.

By: Drh.Mikeu Paujiah, Dipl.Montessori
Translator: Anastasia Merry Linda

A new approach was put up in 1994 by Professor David Mellor and Dr. Cam Reid as a systematic technique to identify and value animal welfare. It reformulated the five freedoms into five domains: nutrition, environment, health, behaviour, and mental and emotional state, circumstance, or experience.

In Five Domain are describe more detail about the animal’s mental state. In case there is some disturbance come to the animal’s physical condition will be entirely effected to its mental state,which means will be affected to its welfare too.

In Five Domain also describe that emotional needs are not less important than physical needs,so the animal will get a good life. Even in some condition the are some friction about avoiding a negative situation ,whether is physical or mentally ,it cant guarantee that the animal has a positive welfare.

Example:
A stray cat who happen in improvement process from pelvis fracture is put in the cage to avoiding its movement and less pain. Maybe its considered to have better welfare if the treatment and medication are giving in foster home with a better environment.

Source:
https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-are-the-five-domains-and-how-do-they-differ-from-thefive-freedoms/
https://partner.booking.com/id/bantuan/pedoman/kesejahteraan-hewan
The Asosiation of shelter veterinarian guidelines for standard of care in animal shelters, second edtion,
Desember 2022. https://www.tisovn.com/post/the-five-freedoms-vs-the-five-domains