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PDSA Animal Wellbeing report on pet health and welfare
Abstract
The PDSA look at the findings of their latest animal wellbeing report, and discuss what its findings mean for pet health and welfare.
Following the introduction of the Animal Welfare Acts (2006, 2011), and in response to a lack of national pet wellbeing surveillance, PDSA, the UK's leading veterinary charity, launched the first PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report in 2011. This included a nationally representative survey of UK pet owners and a separate survey of veterinary professionals, providing data on the wellbeing of the nation's owned dogs, cats and rabbits. The annual report explores trends in dog, cat and rabbit owners' provision of their pets' welfare needs and current issues and views surrounding pet wellbeing. Reports from 2011 onwards can be downloaded from www.pdsa.org.uk/pawreport and Wensley et al (2021) give a full description of the methodology.
The annual PAW report tracks pet health, welfare and owner views over time, and reveals how pet owners may respond to national pressures and trends (for example, 24% of pet owners acquired their pet in the 2 years following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020). The latest survey was distributed between 23 February and 22 March 2022, to 5768 respondents (2569 dog owners, 2586 cat owners and 613 rabbit owners). Key findings are summarised below.
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