Date of Award

1-2023

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Animal Welfare and Behavior (MSc AWB)

First Advisor

Jennifer Punt, VMD, PhD

Second Advisor

Thomas Parsons, VMD, PhD

Abstract

Despite the lack of representation in the research, therapeutic care farming may provide an optimal approach to human animal interaction, endorsing positive animal welfare and, as Fine & Mackintosh (cited Fine et al., 2019) urge, promoting and protecting the welfare of animals at a comparable level to human outcomes.

Unlike virtually all other modalities of human-animal interaction (HAI) or animalassisted intervention (AAI), care farming allows animals an element of control over their environment and the opportunity to express their preferences. The animals can initiate or terminate human interaction by choosing to approach or retreat, the animals choose when to take a breaks, and they are free to explore their environment. Autonomy and the ability to express preferences is a key indicator of positive animal welfare in general (Stilwell, 2016; Mattiello et al, 2019) but especially relevant for promoting animal welfare in human animal interactions.

This randomized control trial investigated the longitudinal behavioral changes of goats residing in a therapeutic care farm setting who engage in human interactions. My hypothesis is goats engaged in reoccurring, semi-structured human interaction will display an increase in positive welfare over time. This would demonstrate that care farming can both be good for human health and improve animal welfare.

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