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T19 Animal Feeling analysis resources and services
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T19: Animal Feeling Analysis
The animal feelings analysis examines an animal’s experience of its own life. This tool has been developed specifically to help participants understand that their animals are sentient beings, whose emotions can be positively or negatively impacted by their state of health, environment, nutrition, ability to express natural behaviours and through people’s interactions with them. By helping people recognize that animals, like people, are sensitive and have feelings about what is happening to them, this exercise can improve people’s motivation to care more about the effect of their own actions on their animals’ overall welfare. In addition, this tool helps participants to assess whether their animals are experiencing a positive emotional state e.g. high and low energy, such as excitement, pleasure, sociability, choice over environment, comfort, satiety (fullness) and/or calm. This tool can be used either on its own as a sensitization exercise, or incorporated into the T22 Animal Welfare Transect Walk/Participatory Welfare Needs Assessment.
| Tool purpose: | Time needed: |
| • To sensitize animal owners, users and carers to the fact that animals have feelings, which are expressed through their behaviour or ‘body language’. • To raise awareness of the observable signs and symptoms that people can use to assess how their animals are feeling. • To generate discussion around positive and negative factors influencing the feelings and behaviour of animals, and ways animals’ positive emotional state can be improved, and increase people’s motivation to improve it. | 2 - 3 hours |
| Materials needed: | |
| Sticks, coloured powder or chart paper, post-it notes, cards, markers. Animal jigsaw puzzle if available and/or or other visual aides to illustrate positive and negative welfare states. |
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase:
Planning Phase, Implementation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B):
Capability, Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change:
Pre-Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Compassion / Empathy, Community Change Agents
Animal feeling analysis
Figure T19 Animal feelings analysis by an animal-owning community
As a first step in participatory welfare needs assessment, a group of animal owners identified 15 indicators that they could use to assess happiness and unhappiness in their animals. All animals were scored collectively based on these indicators, with three pebbles for ‘happy’, two pebbles for ‘medium’ and one pebble for ‘sad’. Only one animal scored three pebbles for all the signs assessed. The animal owners discussed why this animal was found to be so happy and most of the other animals were not. Based on the discussion the group agreed on several action points to make the other animals happier.
| Animal Feeling Analysis | |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | Ask participants “what do their animals expect of their owners to be happy and healthy?” and ask a community helper to list these expectations on a sheet of paper using words or drawings”. Probe participants to think about what animals expect in terms of the following components which contribute to a positive welfare state (Five Domains) • To be healthy? (prevention & timely treatment of disease, pain) • For good nutrition? (feeding & watering) • For their environment? (Comfort, rest, temperature, shelter) • To express their natural behaviours? (Freedom of movement, social interaction w other animals, positive human-animal interactions) Please note: If participants are struggling to identify animals’ needs and expectations, ask them what they require for their own (human) wellbeing. How would you feel without regular access to water or time to socialise with your friends or ability to go wherever you want? |
| Step 2 | Next, ask the community helper to draw a matrix with four columns and write ‘happy, ‘neutral’ and ‘unhappy in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th top columns (see figure T19). If you feel the community will struggle to identify neutral states, make only the columns, with happy and unhappy in the 2nd and 3rd column. While the community helper is creating the matrix, ask participants how they observe/know whether their animal is happy or sad. Where do they look or what do they observe to know this? List the general body parts, expressions, or behaviours they identify using words or drawings in the first column of matrix. For example: several communities advised that their animals use the position and movement of their ears, eyes, head, and neck to show if they are in their ‘best’, ‘better’ or ‘bad’ emotional state. |
| Step 3 | Next ask participants to detail the combination of behaviours or expressions that indicate an animal that is feeling happy, those that indicate that the animal is feeling unhappy, and those that indicate a neutral state for each of the identified signs in the first column. |
| Step 4 | Once the matrix is complete, facilitate the group to reflect on what they learned from this activity. Encourage them to think about the importance of observing these signs and indicators and how this can help them to understand what their animals are feeling and enable them to better respond and meet their animal’s needs. Summarize the exercise by reflecting that animal have feelings like people, and they can use these signs and indicators to help them be sensitive to their animals’ feelings and understand what is happening to them at any moment and reflect on how their own actions have an impact on what they are observing in their animals. |
| Step 5 | Summarize the results of the activity and have the community helper add any actions and activities to the community action plan. Agree on a date and time for the next session. The matrix should be left with the community. Make a copy or take a photograph for your reference for future discussions and further action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker. If they have not already performed one, agree a time when they will assess their animals by doing an animal welfare transect walk (T22) together. |
| If part of T22 Transect Walk | |
| Step 6 | If this exercise is part of the transect walk, first carry out steps 1-4 above. Then, develop a matrix with the agreed behavioural signs written along the top and the names of owners and their animals written down the side. You can use either numerical scoring (2 = happy; 1 = neutral; 0 = sad) or traffic lights to indicate best (green), better (orange) and bad (red). Go with the group on a transect walk to visit individual animals and assess their behaviour and surroundings. Discuss the body language of each animal in detail and associated factors that contribute to a positive mental state to build consensus among all the participants about how each animal truly feels.n tracker. |
| Step 7 | At the end of the transect walk, sit together, and discuss which factors cause or influence the feelings of animals, both positively and negatively and reasons for this. Summarize the results of the activity and agree on action points that individuals and/or the group can take to make their animals feel happier. Have the community helper add any actions and activities to the community action plan. Agree on a date to repeat the exercise and monitor changes in animal feelings. |
Facilitator's Notes: Animal Feelings Analysis
- The animal feelings analysis is best carried out in small or medium-sized groups, as crowding around an animal may change its behaviour.
- Participants should have a general understanding of animal welfare prior to conducting this exercise.
- Behavioural expressions or body language may be different for different species of animal. There may be more than one type of behavioural expression for the same feeling. Encourage participants to discuss this.
- It may be helpful to prepare visual aides of examples of positive and negative expressions of animals’ feelings to enable participants to understand the signs and symptoms of positive and negative emotional states.
Next Steps
- Follow up with the T22 Animal welfare transect walk to support the assessment and monitoring of animals’ welfare and identification of common welfare problems to inform action planning.
- As a first step, the facilitator should prepare a list of the observable indicators derived from identified expectations and effects which reflect animal-based indicators (body and behavioural related indicators), resources, and management practices. In addition, animal-based welfare indicators identified through T17 ‘If I were an animal’ and/or T20 ‘Animal body mapping’ exercises can be used to inform indicator selection for the transect walk. This list of indicators can then be presented back to the community to agree on the criteria which defines each in terms of good, moderate, bad condition/state (green, yellow, red).
- Consider using other tools such as T17 ‘If I were an animal’ and T21 ‘Practice gap analysis’ to look at the physical aspects of welfare such as food, water, shelter, disease and injury and their effects on the animal’s behaviour.