Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In Sweden, veterinarians have since 1971 had an obligation to report the mistreatment of animals to the county administrative boards. Since the first of January 2010 the obligation according to 28 a § law of Animal welfare (1988:534) also include other professions within the animal healthcare sector, as for example veterinary nurse and farrier. The purpose of the obligation for professionals in animal healthcare to report animal mistreatment is to promote animal protection. The purpose of this study was to investigate how and if the obligation is fulfilled and how the obligation is perceived amongst the professionals in animal healthcare.
The county administrative boards categorizied incoming reports as either “veterinarian”, “other” or “public”at the time of the study. Therefore, the incoming reports could only be assumed to come from veterinarians as veterinary nurse could have been placed in either “veterinarian” as well as in “other”, and farrier in “other”. Incoming reports, excluding the ones from veterinarians at slaughterhouses, are for the year of 2009 (before the extension of the obligation) at 87 reports, respectively 158 in 2010, 221 in 2011, 249 in 2012 and 264 in 2013. All together the reports were split on the animal species; dogs (197), cats (317), other companion animals (13), horses (53), farm animals (323), other animals (8) and not specified (381).
A electronic survey was sent to 45 clinics/practices for horse or companion animals as well as to 120 farriers with a license in Sweden. In total 145 persons from the three professions answered. 82 % of the participants had at least once had suspicions about animal mistreatment but only 42 % of the participants had at one time reported the mistreatment to the county administrative board. 36 % of the participants reported that they were insecure in how to make a evaluation about mistreatment in accordance with the animal welfare legislation. Furthermore 31 % reported that they had themselves, colleagues or their working unit been exposed to threats and/or violence from the animal owner when mistreatment had been reported. 81 % reported a need of further education and discussions about how to interpret the animal welfare legislation and how to make a evaluation if an animal had been mistreated or not.
In conclusion; the obligation to report animal mistreatment for animal healthcare professionals has fulfilled its purpose as the incoming reports have increased in number over the years. The county administrative boards need to investigate how to make the registrations of incoming reports more easy to find, and how to make the headlines more informative and concistent. The county administrative boards also need to collaborate more as they now work completely independent, and therefore the records are hard to evaluate on national level. The regional application of the obligation can be improved and further research into how to enhance the use of the obligation are needed. Further investigations regarding education in how and when to use the obligation is of primary concern to the people that participated in the survey.