Animal Welfare

Animal welfare is a science with objective research approaches to understanding the needs of animals. Animal welfare deals with the interaction between science, ethics, and law. This is an easily accessible course that everyone can take—a must for everyone that works with animals.

Beginner. This is an easily accessible course that everyone can take. A must for everyone that works with animals.

“Animal Welfare”

by Dr. Anabela Pinto-Poulton, a fellow of the Wolfson College, Cambridge University, a leading authority on animal welfare (the latest 2021 update is edited by Dr. Roger Abrantes).

Book contents

• Chapter 1 Introduction.
• Chapter 2 Perceptions of animal welfare.
• Chapter 3 Assessing animal welfare.
• Chapter 4 Behavior as an assessment tool of animal welfare.
• Chapter 5 Causes of poor welfare.
• Chapter 6 The welfare of dogs.
• Chapter 7 The welfare of cats.
• Chapter 8 The welfare of horses.
• Chapter 9 Animal welfare and the law.

Please note that the entire contents of the textbook are included in the various lessons and spread over multiple sub-topics (tabs). You need not buy the book separately.

Watch the movie(s) and read the book(s). Join the course forum where you can read our tutors’ answers to questions previously posed by your colleagues. If you have a new question, do not hesitate in posting it.

The course forum is solely for academic questions. For administrative matters or difficulties accessing the functionality of the site, please submit a ticket.

Once you’re ready for it, take the quizzes. You may take a quiz as many times as you like. We recommend you re-take quizzes once a year as a self-imposed quality control.

To warm you up for the Animal Welfare course, we leave you here with “Animal Welfare vs. Animal Rights” by Jessi Knudsen Castañeda. As a sort of training your ability to observe (watch and listen), and become a critical thinker, we invite you to comment and discuss the topic on the Ethology Institute Group* on Facebook.

*You have free access to the Ethology Institute Group page on Facebook.