Greyhound Welfare and the Five Freedoms

The Five Freedoms model was first introduced in a 1965 UK Government report on livestock husbandry, known as the Bramble Report. In 1979, the Five Freedoms were formalised in a press statement by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council and, since then, have been adopted world-wide, including here in Australia, as a basic tool for identifying and assessing animal welfare needs.

The Five Freedoms have also been used to help develop a new, more contemporary model known as the Five Domains. The Five Domains model provides a way of identifying and grading welfare. The Five Domains compliments the Five Freedoms by distinguishing between all the factors that affect an animal’s welfare and overall mental state; acknowledging that for every physical aspect there may be a linked emotional or subjective experience that also impacts welfare.

Both models recognise animals as sentient beings who can experience a wide range of emotions, just like humans; they consider emotion as equally as important as physical state.

The Five Domains model also highlights that simply removing and/or avoiding poor welfare (e.g. hunger) does not lead to good welfare but may only provide at best a neutral state of welfare. This shifts the ideals of the Five Freedoms from reducing or avoiding negative welfare towards a positive welfare state.

Therefore, the Five Domains argues humans need to provide animals with a “life worth living” (a positive quality of life, rather than a neutral or a poor quality of life) through positive experiences, such as things to look forward to (anticipation), excitement, satisfaction, and enjoyment (satiation).