UFAW Companion Animal Welfare Award
Background
One of the main priorities of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) is to promote and support high quality scientific and educational initiatives for substantial advances to animal welfare. In line with this, UFAW is launching a new prize award to recognise significant innovations or advances for the welfare of companion animals.
The UFAW Companion Animal Welfare Award scheme is an international competition open to all individuals and organisations working in the field of companion animal welfare science and technology. Interested applicants are invited to apply to UFAW detailing how the innovation they have made is likely to, or already has, led to welfare improvements for companion animals. Applicants should present an evidence-based, scientifically-informed case and the relevance to animal welfare should be made clear. Key points to be considered include: the numbers of companion animals likely to benefit, and the severity and duration of the welfare problem addressed.
UFAW would particularly like to encourage applications relating to the following fields:
- Genetic welfare problems;
- Detection and alleviation of pain;
- Diagnosis and treatment of painful disease.
However, UFAW does not wish to exclude potentially valuable projects dealing with other aspects of companion animal welfare and applications in other relevant fields will also be welcomed.
The winner will receive a £1000 cheque and a Companion Animal Welfare Award certificate.
Closing Date
THIS AWARD IS NOW CLOSED.
When open, the Companion Animal Welfare Award will be advertised in the scientific press and on the UFAW website. If you would like to receive an email notification when this award is next open for application, please contact the UFAW Scientific Office: scioff@ufaw.org.uk.
Past Winners:
New PDSA pet selection website wins 2010 Companion Animal Welfare Award
Leading veterinary charity, PDSA, has been awarded the 2010 UFAW Companion Animal Welfare Award for its online pet selection tool: Your Right Pet.
Launched online in 2009 Your Right Pet is designed to help prospective pet owners find the pet best suited to their circumstances. By matching owners and pets it aims to ensure that people taking on pets understand their welfare needs and how to meet them. To date, the website has attracted around 75,000 visitors.
Sean Wensley, Senior Veterinary Surgeon at PDSA, said: “We are delighted that Your Right Pet has been recognised for educating owners and improving the welfare of pets. It is designed to prevent health and welfare problems by recommending the best pet choice for prospective owners based on their lifestyle.”
The commitment to informing prospective owners is what caught the eye of the UFAW judges this year.James Kirkwood, UFAW Chief Executive, said: “UFAW congratulates the PDSA on the development of this website tool. It provides information abou
t the welfare needs of various commonly-kept species, helps prospective pet owners to think through the resources and time needed, and is aimed at preventing welfare problems that can arise through inappropriate pet choice.”
Sean Wensley added: “The Animal Welfare Act 2006 introduced a duty of care, which legally requires owners to meet their pets’ welfare needs. These cover important matters such as having a suitable diet, a suitable home, being able to lead a normal life and to be protected from illness and injury. Meeting these needs is the best way to ensure our pets enjoy a good quality of life.”
Your Right Pet is divided into two stages: Stage one features a cartoon pet that ‘morphs’ as users answer four simple questions around the acronym PETS
Place: which type of pet is appropriate for where you live?
Exercise: can you provide the type and amount of daily exercise required?
Time: can you devote enough time to your pet?
Spend: can you afford the lifetime expense of your preferred pet?
Answering these questions generates a list of pets that are most likely to be suited to the user’s lifestyle and circumstances. Stage two then provides more detail on each of those pets, such as expected lifespan, likely lifetime costs and how their five welfare needs can be met.
The PDSA Your Right Pet website is available at: www.your-right-pet.org.uk.
UFAW Awards recognise work for the welfare of companion animals
The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) has announced the winners of its inaugural Companion Animal Welfare Award 2009 for outstanding innovation in animal welfare science to the benefit of companion animals. The standard of entries in this, the first in an annual series of awards, was very high and three winners have been chosen: Oliver Forman of the Animal Health Trust (AHT), UK for ‘The development of a genetic test for spinocerebellar ataxia in the Italian Spinone; Dr Paul McGreevy of the University of Sydney, Australia for the ‘Online Mendelian Inheritance in Animals (OMIA) and the Listing of Inherited Disorders in Animals (LIDA); and the University of Glasgow Pain and Welfare Research Group for their development of ‘Instruments to measure canine pain and health-related quality of life’.
Spinocerebellar ataxia is a distressing neurological disease in the Italian Spinone dog and Mr Forman’s work at the AHT has made significant progress in identifying the genetic mutation responsible. Identification will enable the development of a genetic DNA test that will be 100% accurate in determining carrier animals. Through appropriate breeding practices such a test will enable the goal of completely eliminating the mutation. Mr Forman’s £1000 award will help further research into genetic diseases in dogs.
Dr Paul McGreevy and his team at the University of Sydney have developed an on-line scientific and epidemiological information resource relating to inherited diseases in dogs in order to inform pr
ospective pet purchasers and to provide an effective basis for improved breeding programmes and breed standards. Further work within the project is aimed at providing a means for collecting (through links with veterinary practices), analysing and presenting real-time genetic epidemiological data on the incidence and prevalence of inherited disorders in various companion animal species.
The University of Glasgow Pain and Welfare Research Group has been working for a number of years on the development of a practical system that can easily be used by veterinarians to accurately assess acute post-operative pain in dogs as an effective basis for its treatment. The system has been successfully validated in practice and is now being extended to include chronic pain, for example arthritis, and health-related quality of life in dogs.
“We chose three winners for the 2009 Awards for the high quality of their work and because their projects will be of great benefit to very large numbers of companion animals, not only in this country but around the world,” said James Kirkwood, Chief Executive and Scientific Director of UFAW.
The three Awards were presented by Dr John Bradshaw, Reader in Companion Animal Welfare and Waltham Director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol, at a reception at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery on 22nd June during UFAW’s 2009 International Symposium ‘Darwinian selection, selective breeding and the welfare of animals’ held at the University of Bristol.
