Edinburgh Veterinary Nurses share Animal Welfare expertise in India

 

Animal welfare experts and veterinary nurse students are travelling to India to help raise standards of care for sick animals. They will share knowledge and demonstrate clinical techniques and interventions that can significantly improve animals’ quality of life.

 

Animal Welfare experts from the University of Edinburgh’s Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education will be joined by students from Edinburgh Napier University on the 10-day trip to work with colleagues at the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. This builds on the four year relationship that has been developed between Edinburgh and Kerala to support staff capacity building in teaching animal health and welfare.

Veterinary Nursing and Animal Welfare

Developments within veterinary training institutes across the world have often concentrated on investments in technologically advanced equipment and training of veterinary surgeons. However, good welfare of hospitalised animals starts before the consultation room and long after medical or surgical intervention; this is the domain of the veterinary nurse. Through this project we hope to raise awareness of the vital role of veterinary nurses in improving care for animals that require medical attention. Currently there is no official recognised veterinary nurse training scheme or qualification in India, despite the country’s booming pet population. The Edinburgh team of vets, veterinary nurses and animal welfare scientists will work with colleagues in Kerala to provide training in animal nursing care and will demonstrate how vets and veterinary nurses should work side by side to provide for the health and welfare needs of animals through the whole veterinary experience.

An animal’s experience can be improved dramatically when nursing care is provided by a knowledgeable, well trained and compassionate individual. Veterinary nurses are in the perfect position to do this.

Hayley Walters

Welfare Veterinary Nurse, Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education

Best practice

They will also share best practices in hygiene and infection control and explain how to recognise and manage pain in animals. In return, the Edinburgh students will benefit from being exposed to veterinary practices in a different environment, tackling problems they may not have encountered elsewhere.

We are excited to have the opportunity to learn from our colleagues in India and to experience caring for animals in an environment that brings challenges we haven’t faced before.

Natalie Maxwell

Veterinary Nursing student, Edinburgh Napier University

Animal Welfare Education

Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University is one of India’s well respected veterinary universities. It delivers annual workshops on animal welfare teaching in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh. The visit and workshop will take place in November 2015. The students, who have begun fundraising for the trip, will track their experiences through a blog. So watch this space.

Animal Welfare a priority for European zoos

EAZA Poland 2015

Last month Heather Bacon of the JMICAWE was in Wroclaw, Poland to deliver key training on zoo animal welfare at the annual conference of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria.

Attended by 700 representatives from zoos as far away as China, the USA and Russia, the annual EAZA conference is able impact globally on the understanding of key zoo animal welfare issues.

During the conference Heather was involved in delivering two workshops and a plenary presentation on various aspects of zoo animal welfare. Additionally EAZA has announced the formation of a new Animal Welfare Working Group to specifically address questions from members about animal welfare.

Speaking from Wroclaw, Heather said “It is extremely positive that EAZA – an organisation with 293 zoo members, is focussing on developing capacity in animal welfare. This positive engagement is a crucial step in promoting good welfare for zoo animals throughout Europe and beyond. Whilst zoos may be  ethically controversial, it is important to engage with the zoo community in the same way that we engage with farmers, veterinarians and researchers, to promote effective education, and good standards of animal welfare, across all communities.”

From Edinburgh to Japan; Animal Welfare takes Centre Stage

Last month, Professor and Centre Director of JMICAWE, Nat Waran gave a plenary talk at the ISAE conference in Hokkaido on Companion animal welfare conundrums, as well as providing a talk on 'Going Glocal' to solve animal welfare issues.



ISAE September 2015

The International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE), celebrates its 50th Anniversary in Edinburgh next year, when we are expecting more than 500 animal behaviour and welfare scientists to be in attendance. 

 

The Japan trip didn't end there.
 
Japan's population of pets is growing rapidly and with international concerns for animal welfare rising, Japanese researchers, veterinarians and government officials are keen to learn more about why animal welfare matters in countries elsewhere. Centre director, Prof Nat Waran and SRUCs Dr Fritha Langford, were invited speakers in Tokyo, where they provided talks at Tokyo and Teikyo Universities as well as during a workshop on "why animal welfare matters" .

 

Raising the issue of live animal use in veterinary education to a global scale

This month saw our welfare veterinary nurse, Hayley Walters, attend her second BSAVA (British Small Animal Veterinary Association) International Affairs Committee meeting. Held in Birmingham three times a year, Hayley is the first veterinary nurse to sit on the committee. The International Affairs Committee is responsible for links within the Union of European Veterinary Practitioners (UEVP) and the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) as well as liaising with the Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Association (FECAVA) and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) This committee allows BSAVA to identify and influence matters of importance to the small animal veterinary surgeon in Europe and further afield.

Sheep used for suturing practise at a vet school in China

JMICAWE’s Heather Bacon teaching suturing on a suture board

Hayley presented a report written by herself and colleague Heather Bacon, highlighting the use of live animals in veterinary education in vet schools in developing countries and how this is not only harmful to the animals used for clinical and surgical skills practise but also detrimental to the quality of education that the student receives. Veterinary students often feel conflicted when faced with having to perform unnecessary surgery on an animal in the name of their education. The report also highlighted research carried out showing that veterinary students lose empathy for animals as they progress through vet school and objectifying animals is necessary for them to be able to continue with their practical training. Vets have to be ambassadors for animal welfare so it is of the utmost importance that they leave vet school compassionate, empathetic and dedicated to improving the lives of the animals under their care.

Everyone attending the meeting agreed that countries still teaching students in this manner needed to align with international standards of education and a unanimous decision was made to present the report to BSAVA’s scientific committee. Once the report has been approved it will receive BSAVA’s full endorsement and ultimately be sent to WSAVA. WSAVA is a global veterinary community set up to facilitate the exchange of scientific information between individual veterinarians and veterinary organisations all over the world.

JMICAWE made several recommendations in the report, including how to phase out the harmful use of live animals in veterinary education, and it is hoped that with WSAVA’s endorsement to its worldwide contacts, more vet schools will look to make the change.

 

Animal Welfare Day 8th October in Edinburgh

Scientists from Scotland’s Rural College are inviting secondary school children from across Scotland to join them for a virtual discussion on how best to care for our animals. The animal welfare experts will be online on Friday 2 October at 1pm and school classes can join them by using Google+ Hangout or through YouTube.

Hangout organiser Dr Jill MacKay explains: “Animal welfare is now a part of the higher biology curriculum so this is a great chance for students to discuss the key issues such as disease, hunger and distress with scientists at the forefront of animal welfare research. Students can email or tweet questions in advance and then watch our researchers answer them on a live feed.”

The event has been organised to celebrate 50 years since a significant report on livestock welfare which highlighted need for scientific methods of assessing animal welfare and called for better more consistent care. As the report is a foundation stone of modern day animal welfare research, the scientists will also discuss the journey from that publication to modern day animal welfare science and what lies in store in the years ahead.

Students or teachers who want to join the hang out or find out more should email jill.mackay@sruc.ac.uk. They can also send her questions for the scientists or tweet them to @SRUCResearch using the #Freedoms50 hashtag.

 

G+ Event Page: https://goo.gl/kIYIuz

YouTube Direct Link: http://goo.gl/01IZXs

 

Edinburgh Animal Welfare Students Shine at Behaviour and Welfare Conference in Japan

It's always good to see former students flying the best and contributing so positively to their field.  This week we bumped into several at the ISAE 2015 Conference in Japan!



Jessica Lampe, former Masters applied animal behaviour and welfare presenting her poster at ISAE 2015 Japan 

This week in Hokkaido we saw a number of ex Edinburgh Masters students presenting their animal welfare work to a big International audience. Some examples were: Dr Jenna Kiddie talked on Enrichment needs for long term kennelled rescue dogs in the Philippines, Dr Poppy Statham described her work on positive emotions in pigs, Dr Maria Diez Leon discussed the issues for mink in farms, Dr Jo Edgar spoke of chick stress responses, Dr Jessica Lampe showed us her work on enhancing Lab rat welfare through positive handling, Dr Simon Turner explained how breeding may help reduced pig aggression and Dr Yoshie Kakuma of Japan and her students presented their work on improving pet welfare in Japan. 

We are really proud of the part we played in the early careers of these researchers, who are contributing to evidence based animal welfare improvements all over the world and on a wide range of species! 

 

Virtual Animal Welfare Discussion between Edinburgh and 8 Asian Country representatives

 

 

 

This week, JMICAWE Director, Prof Nat Waran, took part in a live online discussion with animal welfare lecturers working in various parts of Asia, who were attending a workshop hosted by the World Animal Protection.

The 4 day annual workshop held in Bangkok, brought together key drivers for animal welfare education, from veterinary schools in a range of countries, including; Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Taiwan. Using Skype, Prof Nat was able to pose a question related to the importance of using good evidence for underpinning effective animal welfare policy and legislation, and to consider how effective this would be for tackling an animal welfare concern relevant to the key driver's own country. The key drivers raised some interesting points, such as: the difficulties with separating ethical concerns from evidence based arguments and how public opinion led legislation may not always be best for animal welfare; the problem with having legislation that cannot be enforced and the concern that evidence from studies in other parts of the world addressing the needs of a species, is often disregarded in favour of more research being needed 'in country'. All issues that are relevant to others working towards changes to benefit animals.

Prof Nat Waran said 'It was really good to be able to interact with colleagues from different parts of the world to share ideas, knowledge and concerns, and to work towards an improved understanding of how we can mainstream animal welfare for education as well as for underpinning sound policy and practice'. With the use of modern technology, we can look forward to many more of these sorts productive interactions with colleagues all over the world'.

 

 

EU Zoos Directive – Good Practices Document published

 

The EU zoos directive was developed in 1999 to define what constitutes a zoo, and to emphasise the role of the zoo in conservation of biodiversity.




Image taken from EU Zoo Directive



A zoo was defined as “all permanent establishments where animals of wild species are kept for exhibition to the public for 7 or more days a year, with the exception of circuses, pet shops and establishments which Member States exempt from the requirements of this Directive on the grounds that they do not exhibit a significant number of animals or species to the public”

However no EU-wide legislation or directive currently exists to safeguard the welfare of zoo animals. To date, member state legislation has had only the guidance from Article 3 of the directive to guide their responsibilities to safeguarding animal health and welfare: “accommodating their animals under conditions which aim to satisfy the biological and conservation requirements of the individual species, inter alia, by providing species specific enrichment of the enclosures; and maintaining a high standard of animal husbandry with a developed programme of preventive and curative veterinary care and nutrition”

The problem with this phrasing is that neither conservation, nor biological requirements of zoo species are defined, and no guidance is given as to what constitutes a high standard of animal husbandry, so the spectrum of husbandry actually delivered can be very variable.

To address these gaps, the EU Commission recently commissioned the production of a guidance document to standardise interpretation of the EU zoos directive. The welfare section of this document was primarily constructed by Leonor Galhardo, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh’s MSc Applied Animal behaviour and welfare programme, in partnership with Heather Bacon of the JMICAWE.

 

“Zoo animal welfare is an exciting and rapidly developing field of research and practice” said Heather, “positive engagement with the zoo community is essential, not only for to deliver effective guidance on improving zoo animal welfare, but also, for helping us to understand the challenges faced by the zoo community”

 

The Good Practice document can be download at:

 

ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/pdf/EU_Zoos_Directive_Good_Practices.pdf

Jeanne Marchig Animal Behaviour and Welfare MOOC - Always Online

 

We have some exciting news about our Animal Behaviour and Welfare MOOC on Coursera.

Coursera have started to offer On-Demand courses, where the material is always available and students can sign up at any time. The University of Edinburgh’s EdiVet course is already offered in the On-Demand format, so if you haven’t explored that course yet, you no longer have to wait for a session to be run.

The Jeanne Marchig team has been working hard behind the scenes to convert Animal Behaviour and Welfare to the On-Demand version, and we will launch the course on the 12^th October, 2015!

What does this mean for you?

The Animal Behaviour and Welfare materials will always be available to students of the On-Demand course.

Students will be able to sign up at any time and complete the course in their own time.

Statements of Achievement (free) and Course Certificates (paid) will still be available for students who complete the course.

We’re really excited about this development and the innovations Coursera are bringing to the MOOC format.

You can’t sign up to the course until it goes live, so remember to follow us @JMICAWE, follow our blog, and put a note in your diary to come to the course on the 12^th October!

You can still use the #EdAniWelf  hashtag to tell us what you think about the new On-Demand system.

And just for our blog readers we have a behind the scenes preview of what the On-Demand course will look like:



The Animal Behaviour and Welfare Front Page

 
 

The New Course Introduction

 

New Video Format





 

 

Positive Emotions in Horses; ISES Conference 2015 Canada

This August, JMICAWE Centre Director, Professor Nat Waran was invited to speak at the UBC in Vancouver, at the 11th International Society for Equitation Science Conference. This was the first time that the conference has taken place in Canada and there was a good turn out of around 170 delegates from various parts of the world. This included three students who have been studying equine behaviour and welfare through the Edinburgh online programmes.

The Conference theme was about breaking barriers and bridging gaps- between scientists and riders/coaches, and the practical demonstrations by internationally acclaimed riders and trainers in a range of disciplines provided the opportunity to look at the application of an evidence based approach to a range of equestrian disciplines.

 

Professor Waran gave her talk on the second day, addressing the issue of whether its possible to determine if a horse is a happy athlete. This complemented some great presentations covering diverse topics such as; equine stress behaviours in therapy horses, problems with use of the whip in horse-racing and physiological and behavioural responses of horses to wither scratching when under saddle.

The International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) was founded in 2007 by a group of scientists, psychologists, veterinarians, and animal behaviourists united in their desire to promote equine well-being through promoting an evidence-based, scientific approach in horse training and to ensure that the techniques used are based on what we know about horse behaviour and learning, as well as being effective.

Prof Waran is a co-founder of the field of equitation science, and the very first workshop was held in Edinburgh at the veterinary school in 2004, and a successful international conference in 2012. The next ISES conference will be held in Saumur in France in June 2016.

 

You can read more about this year's conference via the following link;

Pet Therapy: Scientists delving into what makes a healthy and happy horse

 

The Crate Escape – Dog Trafficking in the News

Scottish readers may have spotted JMICAWE’s Heather Bacon in the Sunday Mail at the end of last month, as she was asked to give an interview on the dog meat trade in Asia which has hit the international headlines recently following the Yulin Festival earlier in the year. Heather has witnessed first-hand some of the practices that go on in Asia to obtain, transport and kill these dogs, and was asked to talk about it after a report was released by our partner Animals Asia on the illegal dog meat trade.

You may recognise Heather and Hayley’s own dogs, Stewart, Mothi and Matilda (pictured below) who were rescued from the dog meat trade when Heather and Hayley worked over in Asia a few years ago.

You can read the full article by clicking on this link;

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-vet-fight-free-dogs-6140300

 

You can keep up-to-date with all of the centre's news by liking our Facebook page or following us on Twitter!

 

A Dog's Perspective

We’re really excited to bring you a new short film, A Dog’s Perspective, on YouTube.

The idea behind this video comes from our undergrad veterinary students at the Royal (Dick) Veterinary School and they shot and directed the video themselves after completing their final year animal welfare elective module.

Our students recognised that the veterinary clinic can sometimes be a frightening and alarming place for our companion animals and wanted to make a video that could highlight some simple and effective changes to the clinic that can improve the experience for our companion animals.

Carrie Aitken, the video’s director, had this to say:

Veterinarians are sworn to protect and uphold the welfare of animals under their care. It is easy to allow the importance of a patient’s physical health overshadow that of their mental and emotional wellbeing. I wanted to make this video to help us see the world through a dogs’ point-of-view so that we may improve the welfare of our pets in veterinary practice.

To do this I have highlighted the key areas of a veterinary practice from the point-of-view of a dog and provided some suggestions as to how to improve the patient experience.

I hope you enjoy the video and take a moment to consider how the world is experienced through the eyes of our canine companions. 

It’s great to see the next generation of veterinarians thinking about the animal’s experience in the clinic and putting animal welfare front and centre. A big thank you to Carrie and her colleagues for sharing this video with us, and congratulations on your graduation! We know you’ll go on to do great things.

 

Chinese Deans Visit JMICAWE in Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh has been working with the Chinese Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) since 2013 when we signed a unique agreement enabling both parties to collaborate on innovative veterinary research and educational programmes.  The agreement - the first between the CVMA and a UK university – also aimed to promote and strengthen the role of the vet in China, particularly in the area of animal welfare. 

Since 2013 this agreement has been supported by a range of innovative veterinary educational initiatives including the delivery of a Massive Open-access Online Course, with video tutorials subtitled in mandarin, and co-organising the animal welfare education stream at the annual China Veterinary Conference – delivering animal welfare CPD directly to Chinese veterinary practitioners.

 

Continuing this body of work, last week we were delighted to host the Deans and senior Professors from China’s three top Veterinary schools: China Agricultural University, Nanjing Agricultural University, and the Inner Mongolia University, plus colleagues from the CVMA at a workshop on “International Veterinary Education and Animal Welfare”, here at the Royal (Dick) school of Veterinary studies. The Deans interacted with a range of clinical, research and academic staff, and focussed on the ways in which robust research, teaching and practice of good animal welfare supports excellence in veterinary education. Of particular interest was the investment the R(D)SVS has made in promoting the use of non-animal alternatives in the veterinary curriculum, and the Chinese delegation were particularly interested in this practical approach to promoting good animal welfare whilst also supporting an excellent learning environment.

 

The trip, funded by World Animal Protection, also allowed the delegation to visit the Royal Veterinary College in London, and to meet with John Blackwell, President of the British Veterinary Association, to discuss the role of the vet in safeguarding animal health and welfare, both nationally and internationally.

Animal Welfare is of increasing importance within the Chinese veterinary curriculum, having recently been incorporated into the final undergraduate veterinary examinations, but is often still poorly understood as a robust, and evidence-based subject. The use of live animals in teaching is widespread across Chinese Universities, and such practices may undermine theoretical welfare teaching, as well as decreasing student empathy for animals.

Collaborations such as this one are important in promoting animal welfare as a rational and science-based subject, essential for global trade and food security. In addition the positive relationships, educational workshops and teaching exchanges developed by the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education, at the University of Edinburgh, are helping to support the integration of practical and welfare-friendly alternatives into the Chinese veterinary curriculum, as well as championing the role of the veterinarian as an international ambassador for good animal welfare.

Animal Welfare and Free Dog Training - Useful Links

We are always looking for interesting discussions and news articles online - which you might have seen if you have 'Liked' us on Facebook!

 

www.facebook.com/jmicawe

 

We recently came across these two - firstly, a series of videos from The Animal Welfare Foundation's 2015 Discussion Forum, easy to access and covering topics such as 'The Science of Slaughter' and 'Companion Animal Population Management'- find out more here:

 

http://www.bva-awf.org.uk/2015-discussion-forum

 

And speaking of Companion Animals, we also found this great and FREE online resource to do with dog training... it's definitely worth a look! We hope you find these interesting and useful :)

 

http://www.moderndoggroup.com/free-dog-training-videos/