Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Nov 7;8(11):201.
doi: 10.3390/ani8110201.

Examining Canadian Equine Industry Participants' Perceptions of Horses and Their Welfare

Cordelie DuBois  1   2 , Lindsay Nakonechny  3   4 , Emilie Derisoud  5 , Katrina Merkies  6   7
Affiliations

Examining Canadian Equine Industry Participants' Perceptions of Horses and Their Welfare

Cordelie DuBois et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

The diversity of the Canadian equine industry makes determining baseline attitudes and beliefs a challenge. Adult members of the Canadian equine industry (n = 901) participated in an online survey to report demographic information and views on the role of horses and their ability to experience affective states. Questions regarding the welfare state of all horses in the industry, potential ways to address welfare issues, and eight short scenarios were presented. Qualitative analysis, descriptive statistics, and a Chi-squared test for independence examined survey results and potential relationships. Participants strongly believed horses were capable of feeling positive and negative emotions, particularly pain and fear, but rarely were these beliefs reflected in their answers regarding aspects of equine welfare, which may be due to the large bias in these beliefs. Lack of knowledge and financial difficulties were noted as the biggest threats to equine welfare. Overall, there was widespread agreement regarding the presence of welfare issues within the equine industry, but opinions were more divided regarding how to best address them and which horses were most at risk. Understanding these perceptions may be useful to direct educational programs and industry-wide initiatives to address equine welfare through human behaviour change.

Keywords: Canadian equine industry; affective states; equine welfare; human behaviour change; online survey; welfare perception.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pie graphs illustrating the spread of participants (n = 901) in the demographic categories of (A) Canadian province, (B) age, (C) annual income, and (D) education level.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Viewpoints of participants (n = 901) measured using a Likert-scale (agree, neutral, disagree) regarding the ability of horses to feel various affective states. Responses of “strongly agree” and “agree” were combined, as were “strongly disagree” and “disagree”.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Box and whisker plot of scenario (eight numbered scenarios) scores as assigned by survey respondents (n = 901). Vignettes were scored between 0 (poor welfare) and 100 (good welfare) on a sliding scale.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Evans V. Equine Canada; 2010. [(accessed on 3 October 2018)]. Canadian Horse Industry Profile Study. Available online: https://www.equestrian.ca/industry/about.
    1. Lund V., Coleman G., Gunnarsson S., Appleby M.C., Karkinen K. Animal welfare science: Working at the interface between the natural and social sciences. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 2006;97:37–49. doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2005.11.017. - DOI
    1. Rappaport N.M. Valuation of Equine Welfare Skills: Indiana 4-H Horse and Pony Adult Volunteers. J. Equine Vet. Sci. 2009;5:476–477. doi: 10.1016/j.jevs.2009.04.167. - DOI
    1. Horseman S.V., Buller H., Mullan S., Knowles T.G., Barr A.R.S., Whay H.R. Equine Welfare in England and Wales: Exploration of Stakeholders’ Understanding. J. Appl. Anim. Welf. Sci. 2017;20:9–23. doi: 10.1080/10888705.2016.1197776. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Battini M., Barbieri S., Canali E., Dai F., Dalla Costa E., Ferrante V., Ferrari L., Mattiello S., Minero M. Outcomes of a web-survey for collecting stakeholders’ opinion on welfare requirements for sheep, goats, turkeys, donkeys, and horses. Ital. J. Anim. Sci. 2017;16:53.

LinkOut - more resources