Puppy yoga? Goat meditation? An expert examines what these activities could mean for the cute creatures

Puppies! Goats! Kittens! A quick search online suggests that you can take a yoga class with any cute animal you want.

Operators provide the animals, room and an instructor—people pay to come and have fun. Don’t miss the obligatory cute post on your socials, or it never happened.

So far so good. But what do the animals do with it?

As an animal welfare scientist, yoga with animals rings some alarm bells for me: it often seems to focus on human welfare, with animal welfare as an afterthought. But research shows how animal-assisted activities like this can improve, and how we all have a role to play in making animal welfare a higher priority.

Ethical issues are exposed

The behavior of animal yoga has become a hot topic since a recent investigation in the United Kingdom exposed the depressing practices.

Puppies as young as six weeks old are deprived of sleep and water while working on puppy yoga sessions. Classes take place in warm rooms for hours at a time, with no capacity for young pups to opt out of interactions.

People attending the classes were not given guidance on how to safely handle the puppies, and video footage showed squirming puppies falling awkwardly to the ground.

Early socialization builds a dog’s long-term confidence in interactions with people and the world. Bad experiences during this time can influence them to be anxious or fearful.

Similar practices appear common in the growing yoga-with-animals industry. An Australian friend told me about a recent goat yoga session: “It made me feel terrible for the poor goats, caught, chased around the room, and hugged at will.”

How can science help?

My research centers on understanding the animal experience and using this evidence to inform good practice and policies.

It is widely agreed that animals such as dogs, goats and birds are sentient, which means they can experience good and bad feelings—and that is essential to their individual well-being.

With that understanding comes a moral obligation for us to care for animals in a way that includes their mental experiences as well as their physical needs.

The pressure of social license

In modern societies we often expect the animals we trust to have a good life, not just protection from harm and suffering. When we find out that people have failed to protect animal welfare (for example, through media investigations), there is a public reaction.

These reactions can affect the entire industry. A recent example in Australia and New Zealand is the disruption of live export of sheep by sea.

The impact of community attitudes is sometimes called “social license pressure.” When communities trust and accept that an operator is acting ethically and responsibly, the industry or individual has a “social license to operate.”

It is not a physical license that can be given legally or politically. This is a term from industries such as forestry and mining, where community approval underpins their ongoing operations.

Increasingly, the idea of ​​social license is becoming relevant to our interactions with animals in contexts such as racing, farming, and now animal yoga.

In many ways, concerns about puppy yoga are consistent with those observed in other animal-assisted practices, such as education, therapy and other health care settings. Growing rapidly but little regulated, these practices often claim to have a positive impact on people’s lives.

However, the need for animal welfare to be monitored, assessed and prioritized is often overlooked.

Animal welfare assurance

One way to make animal-assisted activities more ethical is through “one health” and “one well-being” initiatives, which focus on the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental well-being.

For operations that rely on animals to be sustainable, they must be transparent and proactive in assuring the public that animal welfare is a priority. This may require extensive revision of historical works.

Research on human-animal interactions is often limited by a lack of funding for animal experience studies, which can be used to inform regulation and policy.

The five domains of animal welfare

When examining indicators of animal welfare, scientists increasingly use the “five domains” framework.

The first four domains are nutrition, physical environment, health, and behavioral interactions (with humans, other animals and the environment). All of this directly influences the fifth domain: the mental state of the animal.

For example, a puppy deprived of water in a warm room may feel thirsty, tired and dizzy. A young animal whose sleep is interrupted may feel anxious, lose concentration, and be more prone to illness. The risk of disease is greater if they are not fully vaccinated, or are exposed to an area visited by many animals. A dropped or mishandled puppy may feel pain and fear, and learn that people should be avoided.

Animals must also have agency—the ability to choose their actions, including whether to interact with humans or withdraw.

How to make a change

In the UK, an investigation by ITV News led to a rapid escalation of the issue. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Kennel Club condemned the yoga classes, and called on the parliamentary group that monitors animal welfare to ban the practice.

This shows the power of social license pressure. Closer to home, we all create this kind of pressure through the choices we make.

By staying informed about what makes a good life for animals, and not supporting practices that fail to agree with it, we can fulfill our moral obligation to the animals that depend on us.

This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.