| dc.description.abstract | Background: Animal wellbeing is a state that covers many different areas and it
is constantly changing during the course of life of the animal. Animal welfare and
responsible ownership sensitivity trainings are held regularly in many childhood
education institutions, but children are not in a decision-making position within
the family hierarchy. Therefore the key to improve animal wellbeing is extending
the reach of such programs to adults.
Objectives: In order to be able to map the wellbeing of companion animals, it is
needed to set up an appropriate data-collecting system to help to determine the
critical points, the animal ownership habits and the attitudes that are necessary
to be changed.
Materials and Methods: During the study, we were interested in where and by
whitch methods animal owners obtain information about the care of their animals.
In the survey, we used a 27-question, online, voluntary questionnaire based on
simple quantitative measurements for data collection.
Results and Discussion: The results show that even though owners know the
rules concerning animal ownership, they do not necessary feel the need to obey
them all the time. Few of them attend responsible ownership trainings organised
and supervised by professionals, but they often participate in online courses or
lectures on subjects they are interested in. Many struggle with defining how they
view their relationship with their animals. Their main sources of information on
pet related subjects are primarily their veterinarian, and secondarily breeders
and educational materials available on online platforms. In order to make sure
that everyone can access quality information on responsible animal ownership
through appropriate channels, besides maintaining the professional oversight, it
is necessary to apply complex behavior change methods. | en_US |
