Operational Details of the Five Domains Model and Its Key Applications to the Assessment and Management of Animal Welfare

Abstract

In accord with contemporary animal welfare science understanding, the Five Domains Model has a significant focus on subjective experiences, known as affects, which collectively contribute to an animal's overall welfare state. Operationally, the focus of the Model is on the presence or absence of various internal physical/functional states and external circumstances that give rise to welfare-relevant negative and/or positive mental experiences, i.e., affects. The internal states and external circumstances of animals are evaluated systematically by referring to each of the first four domains of the Model, designated "Nutrition", "Environment", "Health" and "Behaviour". Then affects, considered carefully and cautiously to be generated by factors in these domains, are accumulated into the fifth domain, designated "Mental State". The scientific foundations of this operational procedure, published in detail elsewhere, are described briefly here, and then seven key ways the Model may be applied to the assessment and management of animal welfare are considered. These applications have the following beneficial objectives-they (1) specify key general foci for animal welfare management; (2) highlight the foundations of specific welfare management objectives; (3) identify previously unrecognised features of poor and good welfare; (4) enable monitoring of responses to specific welfare-focused remedial interventions and/or maintenance activities; (5) facilitate qualitative grading of particular features of welfare compromise and/or enhancement; (6) enable both prospective and retrospective animal welfare assessments to be conducted; and, (7) provide adjunct information to support consideration of quality of life evaluations in the context of end-of-life decisions. However, also noted is the importance of not overstating what utilisation of the Model can achieve.

Keywords: affects; five domains model; model applications; situation-related factors; survival-critical factors; welfare assessment; welfare management.

Figure 1

The Five Domains Model (modified from [12]): The examples provided for the physical/functional Domains 1 to 3, labelled “Nutrition”, “Environment” and “Health”, are intended to direct attention towards mainly internal survival-related factors, and those provided for Domain 4, labelled “Behaviour”, focus attention largely on external situation-related factors. For each of Domains 1 to 4, examples of negative and positive factors are provided and are aligned with inferred negative or positive affective experiences, assigned to Domain 5, labelled “Mental State”. The overall affective experience in the mental domain equates to the welfare status of the animals, as explained in the text. Note that an animal exercises “agency” (Domain 4: “Behaviour”) when it engages in voluntary, self-generated and goal-directed behaviours [44,45].

Figure 2

Depiction of different subjective experiences, or affects, over the full valence range from negative-to-neutral-to-positive and relationships between the different types of experience. Internal factors, which include naturally occurring or induced functional imbalances or disruptions (captured mainly by Domains 1 to 3), give rise to survival-critical experiences (e.g., breathlessness, thirst, hunger, pain, nausea, sickness) that motivate animals to engage in behaviours aimed at securing life-sustaining resources (e.g., oxygen, water, food) or minimising life-threatening harms (e.g., injury, food poisoning, infection). The valence of these experiences is negative, and their intensity ranges from exceptionally negative to neutral. External factors, which influence animals’ perception of the levels of threat or safety, degrees of under-stimulation or pleasurable stimulation from low to high, restrictions on or ease of movement, and social isolation or opportunities for companionable interaction with other animals (captured mainly by Domain 4), give rise to situation-related experiences over the full valence range from strongly negative to strongly positive. Environmental enrichment initiatives can replace situation-related negative experiences with positive experiences. Interactions between the different types of experience are apparent when the intensity of negative survival-critical experiences is sufficiently severe to demotivate or inhibit animals from utilising available opportunities to engage in behaviours that would generate positive situation-related experiences.