A felnőttek felelős állattartásra való érzékenyítése és oktatása

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.