Assessing Animal Welfare

Assessing Animal Welfare, 1st Edition, establishes construct validity as the primary foundation for validating indicators used to assess animal welfare. Designed for animal welfare researchers, practicing veterinarians, and students of animal welfare science, this volume demonstrates how empirical measures connect directly to underlying affective states in animals.

The book organizes its primary coverage across three distinct timeframes of animal affect. For short-term emotions, it reviews preference and avoidance testing, vocal signals, acute corticosteroid responses, body temperature, and heart rate. For longer-term moods, it analyzes judgement biases, play behaviour, reward responsiveness, and DHEA metrics. Finally, for cumulative lifetime affect, it assesses indicators including abnormal repetitive behaviour, cellular aging, and hippocampal plasticity.

As a defining methodological feature, the publication outlines five key approaches to assessing the construct validity of any welfare indicator. This structure provides academic audiences and practitioners with clear criteria for selecting and applying valid assessment tools.