Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Nowadays, pets are considered family members and are therefore important to a lot of people, especially if there is a strong human-animal bond between them. Owners can contact animal health personnel if the animal is sick, or if they need help to have the animal euthanized, which could be considered essential to maintain good animal welfare. If the owner is not satisfied with the treatment provided, they can make a complaint by reporting to the veterinary medicine responsibility board. This authority reviews the matter to assure that the animal health personnel have acted correctly, and if not, they can issue a disciplinary sanction to the reported staff.
Over 1000 reports were made to the veterinary medicine responsibility board during 2018-2022, which could mean that animals have been treated incorrectly, and in that case, animal welfare could have been negatively affected. However, the reports are not always found to be justified, which is what this study aims to investigate. Because of the large number of reports that were made during 2018-2022 and the scope of this study, this essay is delimited to reviewing reports that were made regarding euthanasia of animals, which were 47 in total. This made it possible to investigate the underlying reason why the owner decided to report to the board in the first place and thus enable preventive work in the future.
The data collection method used was document review, since this study intended to investigate reports. The data was analysed using thematic analysis on the qualitative data and descriptive statistics on the quantitative data.
Results showed that incorrect treatment of the animal was the most common cause according to the reports, while the main underlying cause, based on the qualitative analysis, was found to be communication barriers. In most cases (57 %), the euthanasia of the animal did not live up to the pet owners’ expectations. Also, most of the reports did not result in the issuance of a disciplinary sanction, as this only occurred twice during this period.
That incorrect treatment of the animal was the most common reason according to the reports was expected, since the veterinary medicine responsibility board only process reports regarding incorrect treatment of animals, i.e. medical treatment (or lack of treatment) that is not in accordance with science and common practice in veterinary medicine. It was also not surprising that the underlying cause for why the report was issued was due to a gap in the interaction between the pet owner and the animal health staff, since many owners are stressed and sensitive during the process of euthanasia of their animal. Communication errors and owners’ attitudes and feelings could also be the reason why euthanasia of the animal did not live up to the pet owners’ expectations. Since few of the reports led to convictions, this indicates that a vast majority of the reports made during these years were unwarranted and that the notified animal health personnel acted in a veterinary medically correct manner regarding euthanasia of animals.