Introducing the Mellorater—The Five Domains Model in a Welfare Monitoring App for Animal Guardians
Abstract
:Simple Summary
Abstract
1. Introduction
1.1. The Five Domains Model
1.2. Development of the Mellorater Checklist
1.3. How the Mellorater App Works
1.4. User Experience
2. Technical Details
3. Discussion
3.1. How the Mellorater Can Help Animals
3.2. How the Mellorater Can Help Animal Guardians
3.3. How the Mellorater Could Direct Animal Welfare Science in the Future
4. Limitations
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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1. To complete an assessment, consider, one-at-a-time, the 18 statements and decide on your level of agreement with each using the 5-point Likert scale. 2. Consider and record your level of confidence in the quality of the evidence you used to agree or disagree with the statements. 3. If necessary, use the notes and/or image feature to save additional records. 4. Once you have completed the checklist, submit your answers to view the summary card and feedback. 5. Identify any statements with which you strongly disagree, as these are the most urgent areas for improvement. If you strongly disagree with a high level of confidence, act without delay to improve your animal’s welfare. If you have a low level of confidence, try to collect more reliable evidence and/or seek professional advice to do so, at the earliest opportunity. 6. For all the statements where there is room for improvement, reflect on what changes could be made to move your decision to Strongly Agree. If you have a high level of confidence, take action. If you recorded a low confidence level, collect more evidence and/or seek expert advice. However small, incremental improvements can make a meaningful difference to your animal’s daily lived experience. 7. Finally, reflect on the statements you strongly agree with. These are aspects of your animal’s life-world that align with good welfare and should be maintained. 8. Repeat the process over several days or weeks to plot your animal’s welfare state over time. The app will produce a graph to help you observe trends in quality of life over time. 9. Discuss the results with your veterinary professionals if you are concerned by a single assessment or trends over time, and seek expert advice if you are not sure how to achieve an improvement. 10. To reduce the subjectivity of your assessment, we suggest you invite other users to conduct their own assessment on the same animal, using these instructions. Consider any discrepancies in the results between observers, discuss the evidence used in your decisions, and see if you can agree to moderate those different assessments. The aim of such discussions should be to find opportunities to enhance your animal’s life-world. |
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Wilkins, C.L.; McGreevy, P.D.; Cosh, S.M.; Henshall, C.; Jones, B.; Lykins, A.D.; Billingsley, W. Introducing the Mellorater—The Five Domains Model in a Welfare Monitoring App for Animal Guardians. Animals 2024, 14, 2172. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14152172
Wilkins CL, McGreevy PD, Cosh SM, Henshall C, Jones B, Lykins AD, Billingsley W. Introducing the Mellorater—The Five Domains Model in a Welfare Monitoring App for Animal Guardians. Animals. 2024; 14(15):2172. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14152172
Chicago/Turabian StyleWilkins, Cristina L., Paul D. McGreevy, Suzanne M. Cosh, Cathrynne Henshall, Bidda Jones, Amy D. Lykins, and William Billingsley. 2024. "Introducing the Mellorater—The Five Domains Model in a Welfare Monitoring App for Animal Guardians" Animals 14, no. 15: 2172. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14152172