Transcript
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Have you ever wondered if you're giving your pets everything they need to truly live a happy life and one that fulfills their physical and mental well-being?
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Well, today we're going to discuss the needs of animals and what that means, not only for your pet, but for you as a pet parent.
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Stay tuned.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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We also share inspiring rescue and adoption stories from people who've taken their love of pets to the next level by getting involved in animal welfare.
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My name is Amy Castro, and I'm the founder and president of Starlight Outreach and Rescue and a columnist for Pet Age Magazine.
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I've rescued thousands of animals and helped people just like you find the right pet for their family.
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My mission is to help pet parents learn all the ways that they can care for, live with and even have fun with their pets, so they can live their very best lives and their pets can, too.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and today we're going to embark on a profound and possibly controversial journey into the heart of animal welfare, exploring the five essential welfare needs that I think basically determine the quality of life for our beloved pets.
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And so, to help us navigate this journey, my special guest today is Dr Emma Milne.
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Emma is a UK veterinarian now living in France I'm so jealous who is best known for her animal welfare work.
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Over the last 25 years she's written numerous books and appeared on television and radio many times to highlight animal welfare issues that are close to her heart, such as pedigree health issues, which I think we need to do a whole episode on that.
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But, emma, thank you so much for being here with me today to talk about this important subject.
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Oh, it's a pleasure.
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Thank you for asking when we first had our conversation.
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we were kind of talking about what we were going to talk about and you were the one that had mentioned the five welfare needs.
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Where do these welfare needs come from?
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Basically, when I was at uni, at vet school, we always talked about the five freedoms and that was a way of looking at animal welfare that was, you know, very popular back in the day and basically during my time at uni, and since then, which is a long time ago now, it developed into the five welfare needs, because the point was that the freedoms is more about avoiding suffering, and the way that evolved was that we shouldn't just be expecting animals to have a life that's free of suffering, we should be expecting them to have a life that's worth living.
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You know that's better than that.
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So the five welfare needs got written into UK law years ago now, 2006, I think and there's lots of different countries, there's a move now towards something called the five domains, which is again a slightly different model, but in the UK and a lot of the books that I've written I've based on the five welfare needs, because I think it's a lovely way for the people to think about the quality of life of their animals, and we'll touch on it today.
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I'm sure you know I sort of see three of them as physical welfare needs and two of them as mental well being, and you know, as we know, as human animals, that your mental well being is completely inextricably linked with your physical health.
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So it's a really nice way for owners to think about what their animals need and want.
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Definitely, and I think you know, as I was looking at these originally, and you know it's things like a healthy diet, appropriate environment, you know, ability to behave normally, health for the animal.
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I think most people think they're doing that, but having and I know as a veterinarian I'm sure you've seen the degrees I know I see this in animal rescue is that there is the kind of middle of the road which I kind of see as maybe the unbiased and most appropriate for the animal, and then you see people living on either side of that, the people that think they're providing this wonderful life and they're really not.
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And then the, and then the people on the other extreme who go kind of go overboard with it, and then they're not.
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You know, it's like you know from one extreme, from the bare minimum, that's not really a life.
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To the, I've turned this animal into human being, and is that really a life?
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So I hopefully will get into some of that along the way, and I'm sure you see that in your work as well.
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Yeah, and I think one of the things that I, I wrote a series of children's books because I think that using education to change sort of entrenched beliefs and entrenched ways that people view animal welfare kids of the future, I think.
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So I wrote some kids books.
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Basically, I use the five welfare needs as the way that you set that out is.
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If someone can't provide for the five needs, then that's an inappropriate pet.
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You know, I always view the three physical ones.
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They're the easiest to meet and I think a lot of owners you know oh well, I've got the right bed and the right diet and this and that.
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But actually the mental well being needs are just so important and they're they're the ones that we so often get wrong.
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You know, social needs and so on.
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So yes, I agree.
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So let's let's go ahead and kind of dive into it.
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So the one I had listed as as number one was the need for an appropriate or the right diet healthy diet and water.
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So yeah, again, I think people think they're go ahead.
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Yeah, I was going to say I think it's one of those things that you know, you say it and it sounds so ridiculously obvious, but so many, so many times people get diet wrong.
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You know, I think obviously people think about cats and dogs mostly, but in the UK we've got lots of issues with the sort of musely type food for rabbits that allow selective feeding and it brings all sorts of health problems.
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So lots of people get food and water wrong.
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You know there's lots of people who, because of inconvenience to them, don't want their animals to have water at night.
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Well, that's like a fundamental welfare need, so it seems like an obvious one.
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But but a lot of people get it badly wrong.
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And I don't know if you've got this trend in the States that we have over in Europe and in the UK with raw feeding.
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You know lots of people wanting to raw feed and the health issues and the public health issues with that are absolutely enormous.
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So, yeah, food and water, you'd think would be the easiest thing to get right and it's not.
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Yeah, I know we struggle with that a lot.
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I mean, I struggle with that a lot personally.
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I mean I feel like I've researched, researched, researched the food for my pets, and then I'm changing things and then I realized there's no way I can maintain this with my lifestyle.
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Because I tried, when I had my dopamine pincher, I was like, okay, I've got this dog, I'm gonna cook for him.
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I think the first thing is is that people need to do a better job of doing their homework.
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And I see it all the time.
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And when I'm sitting at our local pet store for adoption events and I see people walking out with food that I'm like, oh my gosh, do they even know what's in that or what's not in that?
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And then, like you said, you know going to that extreme of the raw food or the cooking, your own food, but you haven't really done your homework.
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So that's, that's one piece of it.
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But then I think and I'd like for you to address this too for all of these things is there's a balance with some of this stuff too, because if you can't maintain, does that mean I'm a bad parent, or is it okay to find some type of a middle ground, or is there a middle?
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ground.
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I think there's definitely middle ground and you know, as vets we often have accusations thrown at us that we're profiteering from pet food and those kind of things.
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But you know, when you go into a pet food shop now there is just this overwhelming level of choice and I think for Parents if that's what we're using, what term we're using or owners, whichever you, you know, you feel it's Overwhelming and I think you know fundamentally, when I was a kid, we had Tinned me and biscuits, you know, and it was all a bit haphazard and random.
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And of course there are.
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There are dogs all over the world and cats surviving on really awful Nutrition, right.
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So it is that thing of you know you've got your premium foods and and personally you know I've got a cat.
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Now, I've had dogs and cats over the years.
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I've always fed them what would be considered premium pet foods and I get frustrated with people saying that vets only recommend those foods because we make money out of them.
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In fact, vets make virtually no money out of pet food at all and when I was in practice, I gave people advice based on what I did for my own animals and it's not about profiteering.
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So if people can afford those good premium foods, then that's why vets are recommending them.
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You know, fundamentally animals survive on all sorts of rubbish, you know.
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That that's, you know, survival of the fittest, I guess.
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But you know, some of those pet foods are actually, you know, if you look at deficiencies in our own diet, some of those premium foods are better than what most you know have got, nutritionally, better than what a lot of people are living on.
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So I think people shouldn't feel guilty if they can't afford those.
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I mean, they're really expensive in the grand scheme of things.
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But as long as you're feeding a, you know, balanced diet and of course most of the foods that you can buy now are balanced and complete, perfectly adequate to nourish your animals.
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I think, again, you know we're going back to what I mentioned about the rabbits.
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We have big issues in the UK with muesli food.
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Well, we call it musli style food.
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Where they can.
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You know it allows for selective feeding and so on.
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So do you think the pet shops have got some Responsibility as well that they?
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You know, if there's food that really shouldn't, from a veterinary perspective, be fed, then it shouldn't, it shouldn't be in the shops, because then you know people are gonna make the right choices by default, if you like.
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Right.
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Well, I think an educate one of the things that I've learned about birds.
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I've I've always liked birds, wanted birds.
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I've got an issue with keeping birds in cages, so I've never owned a bird.
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But I have birds at the rescue now who have taken over my office, which is why my now studio is in the guest room, because I can't stand just leaving them in a cage.
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But I I always thought birds ate seed.
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I didn't realize I was gonna be chopping vegetables and fruit and doing all these other things.
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You know, you give it the seeds that they sell in the store, you keep it in the tiny cage that they sell in the store and it lives till when it lives and then you get another one.
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I mean, that's the way I always saw people treating animals like that same thing, with gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs.
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Its education on the broader sense, it and we've stressed this so many times on this show is what is the right pet for you and your lifestyle in you know, including your budget, including your time, including your environment, and and making those decisions based on are you ready to make that commitment to that?
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Yeah, and what it needs.
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And now you know and we've only talked so far about food, food and water and yeah, so it's really something that people really need to Think about before they get any kind of pet.
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Yeah, and I, you know the kids books that I wrote.
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So it goes through the five welfare needs and then the children have to do a virtual month, which I think is I Do.
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I love it because my kids one, my, my kids wanted to get some gerbils.
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So I said, right, fine, you have to do the month.
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Every time they've asked for a dog.
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I've said, right, then you walk with me twice a day for half an hour, every, you know, twice every day at minimum.
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And I said, and then once you've done that for a month, we'll talk about whether we get a dog.
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And they're like, oh no, I don't want to do that.
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It's like.
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And then of course they say, but I would if we got a dog.
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It's like, you won't, you're not gonna do it for a month before we've got a dog.
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You're definitely not doing it once we've got one for 12 years.
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So I think it you know, the five welfare needs is a really nice way for people to decide whether a Particular pet is right for them, and I think it's really important that we're honest about it.
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You know, I mean in the states that would probably touch on this, but I was doing going through one of my talks for this conference this morning and looking at mutilations like de-clawing and I know there's still quite a few states that allow that and it's that whole.
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Having a pet is my right and I'll have any pet I want, whether it's.
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You know, if you don't want a cat to exhibit a normal behavior like scratching, then a cat isn't the right pet for you.
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You know, it's this, I want that.
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Therefore, I will have it.
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I think it's that sort of culture of what's convenient for humans isn't necessarily the best thing for the animals.
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Welfare.
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Yeah, 100%.
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And we get into borderline fights with people in person and on the phone Because people get incredibly offended when we deny adoptions to people who believe in decline and are basically going to automatically declaw that pet when they get it and they've always done that with all of their cats prior to that and they'll sit there and argue but I provide a fantastic home, I do this, I feed that.
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I mean it's like, yeah, but that's one aspect, or maybe two aspects, that's not everything.
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And what makes it okay in your mind to cut off your cat's toes?
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Yeah.
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Because you decided to get an inappropriate sofa for your cat's environment.
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Yeah, but it is that Well, you're not willing to take the steps to redirect them.
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I had a discussion with a lady today who's going to be returning a dog to us because the dog keeps getting out the front door.
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It's like, well, how about you put a lock on the door?
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Well, it's a well-butt, Well-butt.
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It's like okay.
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So, after you give me three well-butts.
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You've just told me you're not willing to do what it takes to keep that pet, so just bring it back to me.
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Yeah.
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But it's the human convenience thing, isn't it?
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And I think pets are really hard work, and it's one of the reasons that I think the five welfare needs is a lovely model.
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It's just such an easy way to decide whether an animal's a good fit for your lifestyle.
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Animals are a privilege, not a right, and, yeah, it should be a mutually beneficial relationship.
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Exactly, exactly, all right.
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So let's move on to need number two, which is the right environment, based on that animal's Well, a lot of things.
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I guess species is probably the primary thing, correct?
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Yeah?
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Yeah, yeah, so it could be something as simple as a dog bed, but I think that where that need is very, very, very lacking for me is things like rabbits and the exotic pets.
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Now, I'm sure it's the same in the States.
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We've got huge increase in popularity of exotic pets like geckos and so on, and one of the problems is I mean, you touched on it a bit with talking about hutches and the birds in cages and so on Is that we've got this sort of legacy of, well, rabbits started being kept as pets because they were kept as meat animals and then when people stopped eating them well, obviously, in some countries they're still I live in France now and they're still a massive trade in rabbit meat they were kept in cages for convenience, for the meat trade, and when that sort of translated into pets.
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Now we've still got these incredibly inadequate cages.
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As I said with the kids, they wanted a gerbil, so they had to do their month of planning.
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I gave them one of the pet detective books I'd written.
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I said, right, okay, so you do your month.
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So the first week you're going to do cleaning chores around the house, which is going to represent you having to clean out these cages and so on and we went to the pet shop and we looked at the costs and they had to work out how much they were going to cost and all the rest of it.
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One of the big issues is that so many of the pet shops sell inadequate cages.
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You know it's one of the.
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I'm a patron of a charity in the UK called the Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund, which are brilliant and have done loads and loads of campaigning on various rabbit welfare issues and their whole thing is trying to get big pet stores to stop selling cages that you shouldn't keep a rabbit in.
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You know if you get a starter cage or you know we had two gerbils so the kids went through the whole month of doing all their research and their chores and everything.
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We got two gerbils and we had a huge cage for them and a bit that they could get out of and it was absolutely massive.
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It took up half of the kids bedroom and the gerbils still spent all of their time trying to dig their way out.
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You know, I just think that caged small mammals are actually a significant welfare issue for me.
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You know we had they loved.
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They lived three years and they probably had an enclosure that was four times the size of most gerbils.
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And I said to the kids were never, ever having another small pet like that.
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If they can't have the freedom they want, then I won't have them in the house.
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And I think it comes back to that thing, isn't it is?
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You know, people were so used to this sort of grandfather Ways of keeping pets because that's how it was always done, that we have.
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We have to constantly, I think, try and and check ourselves and say, well, hang on, just because we've always done that, does it mean that we should carry on doing it?
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right.
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Well, and I think, especially with the, with the internet nowadays I mean, I spent a sad amount of time on Tiktok stuff for the rescue, but you know, then you end up scrolling and and fish is another thing that I that I struggle with is, you know, just the whole process of how they get here and then the environments that they live in.
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I just saw a video about a beta fish.
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So again, another one of those starter pet.
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Let's keep it in this little thing.
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And this young woman had shot a video of basically taking her sister's beta fish from this Horrible little environment and created this you know huge environment for this fish and it just got me to thinking about people would just again it goes back to that education before they select that pet.
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Don't rely on what you see in the store, but go out and do some research.
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Look at some of these videos of these.
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You know Appropriate habitats and are you willing to basically, like you said, take over half your kid's bedroom, and that's still probably not a hundred percent adequate.
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Are you willing to turn over a whole room?
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You know the room that my birds are in is 15 by 15 or something like that still a cage.
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It's just a giant cage.
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But yeah, it's like maybe we shouldn't be having these kinds of pets, you know, and maybe they're not supposed to be pets.
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Some of these, I'm quite sure many of these things, are not supposed to be pets.
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Yeah, absolutely, and I Think it's that whole the human habit that we've got of I want.
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Therefore I can have.
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You know that there has to be.
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I think when it comes to animal welfare, there has to be a cognitive process where someone actually asks the question am I Capable of looking after or meeting all the needs of these animals?
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And it's one of the reasons I use the welfare needs in loads of my talks is Because it's such a simple.
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It's such a simple way for people to look at their living situation and and get a pet that is going to have its welfare needs met.
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You know, that's that should be the fundamental thing that we, that we think about when we want a pet.
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I love dogs and I would love to get more dogs, but I travel a lot for work and I don't want to put them in kennels, so I don't have them, and I think it's that the you know a lot of stuff Culture around pet keeping is.
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I Want it, therefore, I will have it, whether it's right for the animal, you know, as you said, with the de-clawing and so on, it's well.
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That's inconvenient to me, so I'm going to Amputate all of its digits.
00:20:52.035 --> 00:20:54.944
You know, there should be a cognitive thought process.
00:20:54.984 --> 00:20:57.933
That happens before that well, and even the education around.
00:20:57.933 --> 00:21:13.219
I mean there have been many people who you know, through education, just explaining to them Because people don't think, you know, they think decline, oh, it's just, we're just gonna, you know, take the claw If they don't realize it's an amputation.
00:21:13.219 --> 00:21:16.633
When many people, once they hear that, they're like, oh my gosh, I would never do that.
00:21:16.633 --> 00:21:21.448
That's a horrible thing to do, but you were getting ready to do it and you didn't even bother to.
00:21:21.448 --> 00:21:23.589
You know, I mean, a quick Google search would let you know.
00:21:23.589 --> 00:21:28.243
This is how this procedure works and these are the, you know, side effects of doing it.
00:21:28.243 --> 00:21:30.089
People just do what they've always done.
00:21:30.089 --> 00:21:34.381
So they grew up with de-clawed cats and so they think that's what you do with cats when they're.
00:21:34.381 --> 00:21:38.848
I mean, I've literally had people say that's what you do with indoor cats, they don't need.
00:21:38.848 --> 00:21:44.041
Yeah, that's like yeah, but you're fingers off and say you don't need them.
00:21:44.791 --> 00:21:46.980
Yeah, and also, but you're taking away.
00:21:46.980 --> 00:21:49.230
I mean, we'll come on to the behavioral needs.
00:21:49.230 --> 00:21:57.210
I you know that, as I said, I sort of see the five welfare needs as three physical ones, and they're the ones that most people can get right.
00:21:57.210 --> 00:22:03.390
You know they can buy a dog bed, and they can, or a cat scratching post, or they can create an environment.
00:22:03.390 --> 00:22:08.182
They can buy dog food or pet food, and you know they can take them to the vet when they're poorly.
00:22:08.182 --> 00:22:21.730
Those are the physical things, but their mental health needs are so much more difficult to meet and what we get wrong so much of the time and I think a lot of the environment and behavior things do go together.
00:22:22.090 --> 00:22:32.619
So I'm holding up holding one other thought that I was gonna bring up until we get to kind of the behavior, but let's go ahead and hit the third, physical one, which is basically protection from pain, injury and and disease.
00:22:32.619 --> 00:22:40.750
And, like you mentioned, you know Most people well you'd be surprised how many people I run into that don't believe that their animals need regular veterinary care.
00:22:40.750 --> 00:22:45.390
But most people do realize that there is at least a minimum standard for that.
00:22:45.390 --> 00:23:04.694
But there's also, I think, many places where people go wrong on that and one of the things I wanted to ask you about because it's a personal issue that I have struggled with in animal rescue is how far do we go to fix a physical injury in an animal?
00:23:05.438 --> 00:23:05.617
Yeah.
00:23:06.290 --> 00:23:13.595
Do we save an animal that we know is going to be paralyzed so that we can put it on wheels and Expect it to live its life?
00:23:13.595 --> 00:23:32.325
I have a real hard time with that, but I also I think it was probably about two years ago we had a kitten that had Severe damage to its eyes and it had other issues as well, so we euthanized it because we figured its quality of life would be that poor.
00:23:32.325 --> 00:23:35.073
Literally two weeks later we get a litter of kittens.
00:23:35.073 --> 00:23:36.738
All of them have eye issues.
00:23:36.738 --> 00:23:44.903
Long in the short of it is one of them's eyes are so bad that we did remove both of her eyes and I still have her.
00:23:45.904 --> 00:24:04.130
And you know it was a struggle back and forth to decide and I try to think that I did it logically and did it with the animals best interest in mind, because, having done rescue for so long and having thousands of animals, I don't feel like my personal feelings Play into it a lot, because I almost feel like I don't have a lot of them left.
00:24:04.130 --> 00:24:07.592
But yeah, I question did I do the right thing?
00:24:07.592 --> 00:24:11.394
You know she's living in my house, seemingly happy, but is she?
00:24:11.394 --> 00:24:11.855
I mean?
00:24:12.875 --> 00:24:20.888
Yeah, but I think it's one of those things that's tricky because even within the veterinary profession there will be there's so many different opinions.
00:24:20.888 --> 00:24:28.064
Personally, I think it is trickier for cats because they live in a in a three dimensional way.
00:24:28.064 --> 00:24:35.414
I probably wouldn't have done that because the cat won't be able to jump or hunt or climb.
00:24:35.414 --> 00:24:40.599
I don't know if she does, but she'll probably spend more time, yeah.
00:24:40.599 --> 00:24:42.904
So I mean it's difficult, isn't it?
00:24:42.904 --> 00:24:47.394
Because you make those decisions based on what your gut feeling is.
00:24:47.394 --> 00:24:57.009
So I don't know, personally I wouldn't, but then, as you say, she may be having a completely normal quality of life.
00:24:57.009 --> 00:25:09.357
I think one of the things that we always try to get across to owners when we're talking about animal welfare and it's something that people really struggle with is that euthanasia is a treatment option.
00:25:09.357 --> 00:25:22.750
You know it's, and I think, as you said, we're touched on already with the, you know, paralyzed animals and how far do you go, and that's always going to have to be decisions that are made between an owner and their vet.
00:25:22.750 --> 00:25:33.346
And you know, as I say, there are vets that do things that I would definitely never do, you know, like whole tongue amputations in a cat.
00:25:33.346 --> 00:25:37.411
You're basically taking away its behavioral need to groom.
00:25:37.411 --> 00:25:48.150
But you know, I think this whole the need to be protected from pain, injury and disease comes back again to, as we were chatting the other day before the recording.
00:25:48.914 --> 00:26:05.951
My biggest I guess what I'm best known for is my work on pedigree health issues and I think a lot of these disabling pain, injury and disease questions are preventable because we're creating breeds of animals that are incapable of living healthy lives.
00:26:05.951 --> 00:26:19.656
So you know, you look at grooming and things and that side of things and you've got things like sphinx cats that have got no fur so they can't groom, they're self traumatizing because they've got barbed tongues, they can't go out.
00:26:19.656 --> 00:26:28.250
So we've created animals that are incapable of living normal lives, behavior and and full of physical suffering.
00:26:28.250 --> 00:26:37.544
And I think that we should be asking ourselves huge ethical questions about a lot of the breeds that we've created because they're incapable.
00:26:37.544 --> 00:26:47.557
You know, we wouldn't need to have massive industry selling carts for Dations and French Bulldogs now, you know, if they didn't all have a lot of the same type of vertebral disc disease.
00:26:47.557 --> 00:26:59.210
So you know, I think a lot of the talks I do are about extreme confirmation and I think we cause a massive amount of physical suffering by selecting for body shapes that are dysfunctional.
00:27:00.955 --> 00:27:41.601
I had a discussion at a dinner table at a professional event and we were talking about, you know, because there's a lot of people in rescue who are like anti breeding dogs in any way, shape or form, and I kind of have this belief that I can see the value in breeding certain breeds of dogs, because certain breeds of dogs, especially working dogs, you're not going to have a shih tzu being a protection dog or a, a herding dog or livestock protection animal, and so I can see the value in breeding certain animals to do certain jobs, because that's what we do with, with animals and then providing the appropriate lifestyle for them.
00:27:41.601 --> 00:27:45.005
But the comment that I made, that got everybody mad, as I said.
00:27:45.005 --> 00:27:50.171
But I can see no value whatsoever in breeding cats, because what does it matter?
00:27:50.171 --> 00:27:53.400
You know it's like do we need different breeds of cats?
00:27:53.440 --> 00:28:06.719
And this thinks is a is a perfect example, because one gentleman very offended by that and it's like well, I couldn't have a cat because I'm allergic to cats, so that's the only kind of cat that I can have, and I stopped myself because I didn't want to start a fight at the dinner table.
00:28:06.719 --> 00:28:11.144
But the issue is then don't get a cat, you don't have a right to have a cat.
