At a glance:

When?: Course seminar on 10th and 11th March, 2018. Four months to complete optional assessment work from there – ends 31st July 2018

Where?: at the AniEd centre, Glasnevin, Dublin 11 (M50, J5)

How much?: Course fees: €120 includes weekend seminar, comprehensive course materials and supplementary resources
Assessment fee: €40 payable at submission

Who should do it?: anyone working with animals, for example, trainers, kennel and petshop staff, groomers, rescue staff and volunteers, and pet owners with a keen interest in animal care and welfare.

Booking: register here and we will respond to you as quickly as possible.
We will ask you how you would like to pay, and raise an invoice for you by which you can pay.
Upon receipt of payment we will send you your Learner Handbook and ask that you sign and return the declaration at the back.
A couple of days before your course starts, we will send you details, directions and so on, for your seminar and then you’ll be good to go!

 

Why do this course?

An understanding of animal welfare is at the core of what we do, and at the heart of every interaction. But, unfortunately, an understanding of animal welfare is poor across professionals and pet owners alike.
This is often down to a poor understanding of the approaches taken to studying and measuring welfare, and an even poorer understanding of the behavioural needs of animals, particularly companion animals.

This course aims to  help you with all that!

We will look at how you feel about animal welfare related topics, how to develop a good understanding based on reliable data and animal welfare science. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be scared of science – this thought provoking course will keep you busy that you won’t even realise we are applying science approaches to animal welfare!

 

What will you learn?

This course comprises seven parts:

Part 1: Critical Evaluation
Part 2: What is Animal Welfare?
Part 3: Animal Welfare Science
Part 4: Animal Welfare Ethics
Part 5: Animal Welfare Legislation
Part 6: Assessing Animal Welfare
Part 7: Improving Animal Welfare

Part 1 Critical Evaluation:

It’s truly wonderful that we live in an age where reliable information (and lots of not-so-reliable information) about animals is available at the touch of a button.
But, with so much information bombarding us, it can be difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Critical evaluation skills are essential in the information age, and especially when we are looking at such emotive topics.

It helps us directly with our studies of animal welfare, given the very definition and our approach to studying welfare; looking at the animals’ quality of life, from its point of view. Learning to look beyond our personal opinions, beyond our considerations to the bigger picture, to the wider implications.

Part 2 What is animal welfare?

Animal welfare is define and described in literature, and learning to apply this to real life is challenging. We will look at these definitions, how they apply, and how we approach our studies.

Part 3 Animal Welfare Science

This approach to studying animal welfare allows us to measure the effects of what we do to animals, and learn to evaluate how they feel about that.

We look at what animal welfare scientists do and why we need a science of animal welfare.

Part 4 Animal Welfare Ethics

While science measures animal welfare, ethics poses questions about what we do with that information.
Is it ok if animals experience poor standards of welfare? These are individual, cultural, and often biased topics, making it less clear and more difficult – thought provoking and challenging is only the half of it! You will be helped to unravel these puzzles for yourself.

Part 5 Animal Welfare Legislation

We will look at the acts of legislation protecting animals and the organisations charged with safe-guarding animal welfare, and their practices and efficacy.

Part 6 Assessing Animal Welfare

Learn to develop animal centered outcomes so that you can evaluate animal welfare from many different angles, providing you with a full picture.

Part 7 Improving Animal Welfare

Assessing an animal’s welfare is only the beginning…we will look at developing skills that allow you to assess and improve an animal’s conditions, measuring the effects as we go.

Assessment

All assessment work is optional, unless you are completing a Specialisation.
But don’t worry, there are no tests or exams! All assessment will be conducted over a number of months, and as part of your course materials, you are provided with a study planner to help you organise your studies.
Even if you don’t plan to submit, you are encouraged to complete assessment work.

For this course, there are a number of assesssment pieces:

• Q&A workbook relating to coursework, lots of which we will work on during the seminar weekend
• a log documenting your journey to critical understanding of topics that you find particularly interesting
• practical health and welfare demonstrations
• constructing a welfare audit for specific animals

You have four months of complete this assessment work.

Register here.