Planning the New Year for Your Dog
With the new year being a time of resolutions, why not make some for your dog as well as yourself? Planning the new year for your dog can offer any number of benefits for both of you including a stronger bond, higher quality of life, and increased health. For simplicity’s sake, we recommend a holistic approach to this based on the “Five Freedoms” of animal welfare.
The Five Freedoms are a framework for animal welfare, and is internationally recognised as being a kind of gold standard for care and husbandry. They are aspirational, meaning that while it may not always be possible to fulfil them (dogs inevitably sometimes feel hungry, thirsty, or anxious), animal owners should be aiming to meet them as much and often as they can. They are as follows:
- Freedom from hunger and thirst
- Freedom from discomfort
- Freedom from pain, injury, or disease
- Freedom to express normal behaviour
- Freedom from fear or distress
Following the Five Freedoms will provide you and your dog with the best platform possible to go into the new year with. They offer manageable steps that will help you understand how to provide for your dog in ways which will support its overall wellbeing, as well as physical and mental health.
While this may initially seem somewhat intimidating, the Five Freedoms and their importance are widely recognised and easy to seek advice on if you feel this is required. Any vet or reputable dog trainer can help you better understand, as well as properly implement them.
