OK, hello everyone and welcome to the online launch of the 2020 PDSA Animal Wellbeing report, a project kindly supported by the players of the People's Postcode Lottery. I'm sure you're all aware, PDSA is the UK's leading veterinary charity, providing free and low-cost veterinary care to the pets of people. Need, just in case you needed the, the context, I'm Vicky Betton.

I lead the team at PDSA who produced the poor report, and to mark our 10th report, I'm honoured to welcome an esteemed panel of expert speakers who had asked to turn your cameras on, so I'm not on my own on the screen here. Hi guys. Each of our, each of our speakers will give their view on one area of significant areas of change.

We've tracked in this unique report, which looks at 10 years 10 year trends and changes this year in pet wellbeing, potentially due to COVID-19 restrictions. So to just go round our panel, we have Richard Hooker, PDSA Director of Veterinary Services, who's championed this project since its inception in 2011, who will introduce the report shortly and later give a view of the impact of COVID-19 on PDSA's work. We have Laura Piggott, Associate director of YouGov, who will give us an overview of the panel methodology used by YouGov to ensure the poor report findings are nationally representative.

We have Chris Lawrence, known to many of you, wearer of many hats, but here is the chair of the canine and feline sector group and the Animal Welfare Foundation, who will give an outline of animal welfare legislation over the past 10 years. We have Joe Oakton, president of the British Veterinary Nursing Association, who will look at our first specific issue, pre-purchase activity and the role of the veterinary professions in tackling that. We have Daniela dos Santos, senior vice president of the British Veterinary Association, who will focus on the provision of preventive healthcare.

Of Alex J, the Royal Canon Professor of Small Animal medicine at the University of Liverpool, who will share his expert insight into the issue of diet and obesity and pets, the fabulous Sarah Heath, our CVS and European veterinary specialist in behavioural medicine and a certified clinical animal behaviourist who will cover the issue of pet behaviour. And obviously last but not least, we have, PDSA, PDSA's own Sean Wensley, a senior vet for communication and education who will discuss pet wellbeing in the next 10 years and give us that aspirational view. So the final segment is a panel discussion, as long as we can all stay online for it, please, please bear with us.

That's gonna be guided by you and the questions you add to the Q and A box throughout the webinar. So I'll do my best to direct as many of these as I can to the, to the panel for discussion and hoping we can get some really robust debate going towards the end of, of the, the couple of hours. As we go, we'll be popping relevant links in the chat box, so please do feel free to, do the same if there's any good resources you want to flag.

And I have Lynn and Emma online ready to answer any specific data questions you might have as pertains to the report. If you haven't downloaded the. Report yet, please do.

Emma and Lynn are just gonna pop the link in the chat box, and if you're tweeting, please do tag PDSA and use the hashtag 42,020. Thank you very much for bearing with us again with the, with the technical issues. So if we could start with Richard, sharing your screen.

OK, welcome everybody. I just want to spend a few minutes just giving a bit of an introduction if I can, to the poor report. Many of you will know that the poor report is the UK's largest annual assessment of pet health and wellbeing, and it's a report that we've produced every year since 2011.

So this is our 10th year, 10th edition. It was launched really against a backdrop of new animal welfare legislation coming into place across the UK, and each of the acts introduced a legal duty of care, meaning that animal owners were legally required to meet the five welfare needs of their pets. And the vision of the legislation aligns with PDSA's vision, and that is a lifetime of well-being for every pet.

And so we undertook work to promote the five welfare needs, initially as a five-step plan towards improving pet health and wellbeing. We wanted to convey that legal duty to pet owners, but do so in a consumer friendly, a helpful, friendly sort of tone. Whilst we were delivering advocacy and campaigns and educational programmes on pet welfare problems, it was a time that there wasn't an independent or any national surveillance on, on pet welfare in the UK.

And and we felt it was vital that we should fill this surveillance gap to help identify welfare problems and understand their scale, track changes over time, and assist with prioritising actions and interventions to really look to promote the work in this area and address some of the priority problems. In effect, we were looking for a way to measure the success of the legislation and ultimately, so we could ask, answer ourselves the question, are, are we all making a difference? And it was that, and with that in mind that the pool was developed to help fill this gap.

Working with YouGov, our aim was and remains to ensure that the sampling and insight we achieve is nationally representative of all UK pet owners, and we can then provide a credible source of information and insight. And in a moment, I'll hand over to Laura from YouGov to explain a little bit more about the methodology that sits behind Paul. So what does port help us to do?

Well, it helps us explore whether the UK's pet dogs, cats, and rabbits are having their 5 welfare needs met. It helps us assess some of the trends in the welfare problem for these particular species. It also helps us explore pet owners' preparation for and their experiences of pet ownership.

It also helps provide some estimates of the UK population of owned pet dogs, cats and rabbits. We've also used it to gain insight on pet health and welfare from veterinary professionals. And we've undertaken surveys with the veterinary profession to gain their very valuable insights and and their opinions on on some of these issues.

And over the last 10 years, through this methodology, we've sampled over 83,000 people to get the respondents and input and insight that we're able to pull together every year as our poor report. I'm pleased to say that we've got a paper about Paul, including the methodology, which has now been accepted for publication by a peer-reviewed veterinary journal, and we hope to have that published early next year. But now I'll hand over to Laura to give more information about how the poor report is actually conducted.

So yes, so I'm joining today from YouGov to give a little bit of background on the methodology that we use for this research, some of the fun stuff that sits behind it. So to start out to say that YouGov has been working with the PDSA on the Paul report since 2011, and it's very exciting to have 10 years of time series data now to analyse in the many ways that we do. So a little bit of high level background is that each year we conduct a survey online of dog, cat, and rabbit owners, and this year we actually conducted two surveys, one in February and one in August.

The sample size for the first survey was 4800 roughly, and for the August survey it was 4100. Now, in every case, each year, the respondents for the survey are sourced from YouGov's online panel, which is made up of over a million adults in the UK. And these samples are structured to be representative of the entire population of dog, cat, and rabbit owners in the country.

And in this case, we choose to use age, gender, and region as our demographic variables to control for. And just, you know, some very quick background on what happens behind the scenes. We have two stages that we follow to ensure that the sample is representative.

And the first is during field work, we set quotas when we're collecting the responses to ensure that we're getting the right number of people from each of the demographic categories. And we also do a little bit of what we call boosting, which is to increase the numbers in certain regions to allow for analysis at each of the regional levels. And then the second stage is what we call waiting.

And using this we just correct for any small imbalances in the sample that we've achieved. And we also adjust the balance, for example, of down weighting the regions that are no longer just to represent the proportion overall. And it's quite a thorough waiting process in that we weight each of the three pet types separately based on their unique demographic profile, and then we wait the overall sample to represent the breakdown of those 3 pet types within the population.

And these, these demographic profiles are updated every year, which I'll outline in more detail in the next slide, but they are based on a nationally representative survey of 10,000 adults in the UK. It's also just worth noting here that these are very large samples. We consider these to be very robust samples of pet owners in this case, and they allow us to cut the data in many different ways.

And it also allows us to confidently measure statistical change, and this means that any difference that we report in the poll report is significant at a statistical level. So you may also know that we calculate estimates of the number of pets in the UK. And we do this every year using paw data as well as some other sources.

And this is a method that YouGov initially created for year one of the paw report, so it's now been 10 years of replicating the same method. And essentially at a high level, it involves combining three separate data sources. The first source is this nationally representative survey that I mentioned, which is conducted through YouGov, and it's a survey of 10,000 adults in the UK and we use this to determine what we call the incidence of pet ownership, and this is the proportion of adults in the country who own a dog, a cat, and a rabbit.

And the second data source that we use is the POS survey itself, the survey of pet owners, which we know is representative of that population, and with this we determine how many pets are owned by owners. So for example, how many cat owners have 1 versus 2 versus 3, and so on cats. And the third data source that we use are official government stats, and these tell us the number of households in the UK.

So what we do is through combining these three sources we're able to extrapolate the survey data to estimate a number of pets by in in millions in the UK. And we found in February of this year, and when we conducted the original survey that we estimate 10.9 million cats, 10.1 million dogs, and 1 million rabbits.

And you may also know that this year we actually calculated these again in August. This was in line with the 2nd survey that we ran this year. And here we actually found that there has not been a a significant change statistically in the size of the pet population and our measures for evaluating this are that the incidence of pet ownership didn't change, as in the proportion of adults in the UK who own a dog, a cat, and a rabbit, those numbers didn't change in comparison with February.

And there was also not a significant change in the number of pets owned by owners. There was no consistent story, for example, in an increase in the number of pets owned a number of cats owned by cat owners in the UK. So from this we deduce that, although anecdotally there have been stories around changes in, you know, increasing ownership and that kind of thing, at a statistical level, we have not identified a significant change, which I'm sure might be a point for discussion later, but for now, I will pass over to the next speaker.

Do even better if I unmute my microphone. It's the disease of 2020, isn't it? Well, first, thank you, PDSA for inviting me to talk today.

I'm a strong supporter of the Paul report, as you'll see as we go on. I'm going to cheat a little bit, and do this chronologically. So I'm going to talk about the the past first, and progress to where we are and where we might go in the future.

I thought I'd start by showing pictures of these two fine gentlemen. If we were all sitting in the same room, I'd be asking people if anybody knew who they were, but as we're not, I'll have to tell you, the gentleman on your left is William Wilberforce, MP, and the gentleman on your right is Richard Martin, MP, otherwise known as Humanity Dick. And of course they back in the 19 in the 1820s were the the people who started off animal welfare legislation in this country.

And the first prosecution, which is a really well known picture, this one where humanity Dick had to take the donkeys had been beaten into court to show the judges exactly what was going on, and you'll note there's absolutely no social distancing happening in this photograph. So where are we with legislation from there? Well, that ended up as the Protection of Animals Act 1911, and that was based on this principle of unnecessary suffering and accepts that some suffering is necessary, for instance, neutering, microchipping, those sort of issues.

But that unnecessary suffering is of itself illegal. And of course, the restriction of that is that nothing can be done until the animal has actually suffered, and that was a, a major concern of all the welfare organisations. So we were very pleased in 2003 when the then government announced that they were going to review the legislation.

And we went then into the Animal Welfare Acts that Richard's already mentioned. England and Wales, the Animal Welfare Act, the Animal Health and Welfare Scotland Act, both of which came in in, 2006, and the Northern Irish caught up in 2011. And they both continue the prospect, the concept of unnecessary suffering, but they add to what was in the 1911 Act in two ways, two important ways.

Firstly, they say that the owner of an animal is responsible for their welfare 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that wherever the animal is, the owner remains responsible for its welfare. And they also introduced the concept of mental suffering as well as physical suffering, and I'm sure Sarah will pick up on that later. But perhaps the most important bit, and again Richard's mentioned it, is the implementation of this duty of care, the acceptance that animals have needs, and they have those needs to be able to live a happy life and have a good life.

One of the most important things about the act was that all these acts are what are called enabling acts which allow governments to introduce regulation by what are called statutory instruments or regulations which are a much easier parliamentary process than a full blown Act parliament, so happen quicker and are more easy to amend. So where have where have we progressed since then? Well, the, the act itself came into effect in March, April 2007 and was accompanied at the same time, when with regulations on mutilations and docking.

Those allowed, the continuation of, of microchipping and neutering and all of those sort of issues. They had to be done immediately. And then sadly we had a great long gap before anything else was done, but we've now started off again with microchipping of dogs in 2016 and most recently, the regulation on licencing of activities involving animals, which have picked up the original intention of the act to reform all of the old legislation, on a whole range of, of issues.

Pet shops, and of course, most recently Lucy's law, which bans the sale of puppies and kittens, by anybody other than their breeder, under the age of 6 months. Dog breeders, of course, dog daycare, which were not really previously registered, home borders for dogs again, not really legislated for previously, dog and cat boards, animal trainers, and there's some equine bits in there as well, which is not the subject for today. So in terms of enforcement, well, the most important thing for enforcement, and this is where the poor report is, is absolutely critical to this process, is knowing what's happening in the real world.

And unless we know that, it's difficult to know where you should target enforcement and what new regulations you might wish to introduce under the Welfare Act. Public attitudes are critical and I think one of the sadnesses of the whole introduction of the acts from my point of view was twofold. One was that the whole conversation got waylaid into docking, which frankly is a relatively minor issue in the whole all the welfare issues that we talk about.

But so little was done by government to publicise the acts as they came in, and the charities did a grand job in doing that, but it really should have been a government job. And of course, I've said that there was this great long gap before the enabling legislation came in and the lack of political will to do anything in spite of public pressure. We're lucky at the moment that we have a very welfare sensitive minister in Lord Goldsmith, and of course he has an ally in the flat, at number 11 Downing Street, who no doubt has some influence on her cohabite.

Effective enforcers are critical and the RSPCA of course, is very good at, prosecuting where necessary, but also advising owners of their sins if they're not complying with the five welfare needs. I have to mention devolution, and I know the devolved administrations get annoyed every time I say this, but it does cause confusion where there is difference between, in regulation between different different countries, and especially between where you have coincident borders between England. Wales and between England and Scotland, where you've got one rule, one side of the border, and another different.

And I know that the devolved administrations say they bounce ideas off other and each other and they push each other to introduce more legislation, but there are disadvantages as well. So what have we achieved? Well, I've taken some bits from the two reports 10 years apart, and in 2011, 1 of the major issues was unsuitable breeding, both in terms of puppy farming, but also of pedigree dogs.

And of course that has not changed sadly. We still have large numbers of puppy farms and there's active discussion going on at the moment about better regulation of puppy breeding, and you're all seeing the huge increase in the numbers of some breeds like French bulldogs, completely unsustainable in a welfare, a welfare environment going from relatively small numbers to being the most popular breed a couple of years ago. Lack of understanding the cost of pet ownership was an issue then, and of course we're really concerned now as the recession bites and people become more and more people become redundant and unemployed and what that's going to have an effect in the long term, and I'm sure we'll hear more about that later.

Inadequate pre-purchase advice, and this year's poor report shows only 6% of purchasers consulted a vet beforehand, and that's something we really need, really need to work on with the veterinary profession and a publicity campaign to get people to think a little bit more about buying a pet. So where are we going? Well, I've talked a little bit about enforcement.

Local authority inspectors have been one of the flaws in the enforcement system. There's a huge amount of training going on at the moment, so I have high hopes for that. We have a microchipping review of the 2016 dog legislation, and we're expecting any day, a consultation on extending that to owned cats.

We're also hoping that animal welfare establishments, rehoming organisations, all the big organisations will also be regulated under the licencing activities involving animals. And of course, import has become a huge problem with massive increases in imported numbers of puppies over the pandemic, and all of those coming from really poor welfare, conditions of being bred, and the illegal trade picking up on a market that was already in difficulty. And I've managed to get all the way through this without mentioning COVID, but again, I'm sure others are going to talk about this.

I have real fears in the next few years about reductions in charity income and increases in demands from the general public for welfare assistance for their animals because of the recession and other issues where people go back to work. So in summary then, we have had some huge improvementslation in the last 10 years or so, and particularly most recently. We've got further improvements in the pipeline, and I think the next 5 years or so, are going to see some significant some significant improvements.

And if we can get all that, then we really can start to claim, as we should be, the most animal welfare friendly country in the world. Thank you very much. Hi, so, today I'm gonna be presenting to you some findings regarding, pre-purchase advice and how these could be of benefit to potential new owners.

If you like me, feel like you've seen just endless numbers of new pets this year, this could be a way to ensure people are informed correctly when homing a new pet. In one week period at the practise I work in, we registered a staggering 32 new puppies and kittens. And for a small 1.5 vet practise, this was just a huge amount, and we're still getting calls for first vaccinations, but our diary is completely fully booked.

I also know other clinics that have simply had to stop registering new clients due to not being able to meet the excess demands. We have, we have new puppy and kitten owners calling expecting a vaccination appointment the next day, and we just cannot meet their expectations and accommodate this. And this concerns me regarding animal welfare, but then also the frustration that we receive as a backlash from clients because they've gone into this without the, the understanding of what is needed behind it.

I know Daniella will be talking next about preventative healthcare in the next talk. So, I want to look at some stats from 2018 about pre-purchase clinics, which I feel are relevant. It's good to look at these statistics and then we can see if there has been any change.

Has your opinion changed after the unusual experiences that we've had this year? I don't know about you, but I feel like I've seen far more behavioural issues in young animals this year, and this is something that again is going to be looked at a little bit later in the webinar. So already in 2018, 13% of practises offered free pre-purchase clinics and 2% offered paid for.

But 46% said that their practise hadn't considered offering the service. But 90% then said it was something they would consider offering. So, they also asked for consultation frameworks for pet purchasing to try and help help those discussions around getting a new puppy or kitten or rabbit.

So there are some statistics from the 2020 poor report which I think is significant. There are a few improvements when we look at the report, especially around rabbits. Now, could this have improved because as a profession we've spent time promoting rabbit awareness and welfare.

We've made these clinics really available and accessible in practise to promote the correct husbandry, as well as taking part in national awareness events such as Rabbit Awareness Week. This helps also demonstrate how nurses are uniquely placed to offer professional and accurate guidance on how to keep pets happy and healthy and provide them with the care they need. So the first statistic here in green, it looks positive, but it's also incredibly concerning, not only because of the 18% that would knowingly get their puppy from a puppy farm, but the concerning issue is when you look at the fact below, is that a huge percentage of new owners don't realise they're purchasing from a puppy farm or they feel they are rescuing a puppy, but inevitably they're funding the puppy farm further, and I'm sure this is something that we've all seen in practise.

And then there's these, these bits of information here about owners actually feeling less informed now in 2020 than they did in 2011, and less informed about how to provide for their pets need to express normal behaviour. And there is little change with the familiarity of the Animal Welfare Act and the percentage of owners who did no research before getting a pet. Do you think this has gone down maybe because people are making more impulsive decisions about a pet because they've got time and they want one, rather than looking into what is needed around that.

There seem to be quite a rush to buy a puppy and kitten this year, especially with the lockdown. And although the figures don't show that there is an increase in pet ownership, I wonder if this will start to have an impact next year. So getting a pet is usually a decision motivated by emotions, and no one wants to be told that they shouldn't get the pet that they want to get.

And this is why we need to get the information out there early before they have decided on what pets they're gonna get. So 25% of owners said they did no research before getting a pet. But 45% of owners would be interested in a free pre-purchase consult with the vet.

And if you look at the, the areas of information where people are getting information from, they are looking, but it's potentially very misguided, the information that they're they're taking on board. Because only 6% of owners said that they took advice from a vet or vet nurse before acquiring their pets, which is an increase from 2015, but it's only a 2% increase for a very, very small number. So this is a really good opportunity for the veterinary profession to show that we can be trusted and a reliable source of information.

We need to be approachable and encourage potential new pet owners to reach out because of the barriers of people coming to ask us because of cost. Do they think we'll be too expensive? Do they think we're too busy and they don't want to bother us, which I know is certainly an issue at the moment because we are all under pressure in practise.

Do they even know we can provide this type of information? Have they even thought about ringing their veterinary practise for this kind of help? So pre-purchase consults feel like a big ask at the moment, but they also couldn't be more needed.

It sadly isn't gonna fix the lockdown pet purchases, and that inevitable fallout from, and it's the inevitable fallout from that that we're all waiting for, but it has shown us that we need to be more approachable as a profession. There is a concern that the clients who would attend a pre-purchase consultation are the ones who would be responsible owners anyway. But there are a huge number of first time pet owners who desperately want to do the right thing, but they need a lot of support and guidance along the way.

I mean, we've all seen in practise that breed that we know is so not right for that person. And now that they're now they're struggling, they're coming back to us with issues, and we need to try and get to them before those issues are shown. We also need to get really creative with how we provide this information.

Encouraging people into our practises isn't something we're easily able to do at the moment, so we need to look at other ways. We can provide telephone consultations, virtual clinics for those clients that aren't ever gonna. For this advice, we could do social media posts which direct to the correct levels of support such as the puppy contract, the kitten checklist, rabbit welfare funds, and the PDSA which pet Quiz can help guide us on framework of how to offer this advice.

It may seem difficult to encourage clients to take this up, but the more we do, the more it will be noticed if we're all saying the same thing. So we'll make sure that the links to the recommended the information that I've given there are in the chat box for you to have a look at. So we won't be able to change everyone, but I think this shows that education and awareness are key.

Even if we start sharing our knowledge with just a few, that information will be fed back and passed on within families and friends, we can start implementing that change. The poor report shows that desire for help and support is there, is just potentially misguided on where to get that information from. Veterinary practises should be the trusted source of information and veterinary nurses are ideally placed to support new owners before taking on a new pet.

They can help build trust and bond clients to make us more approachable. This entire lockdown period I've been working in a small animal first opinion practise right in the city centre, and I felt and still feel the overwhelming frustration and exhaustion with the demands that are placed upon us. But we can't forget why we're in the job.

For me it is preventative healthcare and client client education, and we all have been through this year all together, and the evidence in this report shows that we need to ask some questions as to how we can engage our pet owners and hopefully drive some positive change that will improve animal welfare in the years to come. And I'm just gonna leave it there with that screen and the link to the PDSA which pets, which is the framework that can help us create that framework around how to discuss things with our our clients and potential new pet owners. And I'm gonna hand over to the next speaker now.

Hello everybody, my name is Daniela dos Santos, and I'm the senior vice president of the British Veterinary Association, and I am also a small animal vet in practise. And I want to just say thank you very much, to the PDSA for inviting me today to reflect on the findings of the pool report. Particularly when it comes to preventative healthcare of our nation's pets.

It is an honour to do so on this, it's 10th year, but also the year where a global pandemic has affected every aspect of our life, including the provision of veterinary care in a way that nobody predicted. So in my 10 minutes, I will go through what has happened with regards to preventative healthcare over the last 10 years in dogs, cats, and rabbits, the more recent impact of COVID, and my hopes for the future. So when it, so when it comes to looking at the last 10 years of preventative healthcare in dogs, I would say overall the picture is a stagnant one.

Despite all the work, we have not seen a sustained change overall in booster vaccination levels, levels of insurance, neutering or parasite treatment. As you can see, however, the percentage of dogs microchipped has increased significantly, with a dramatic increase in 2016 coinciding with the introduction of compulsory microchipping. There is a positive to be found.

81% of dogs received a primary vaccination course, reversing a decline in recent years. But despite this, and an increase this year in dogs receiving booster vaccinations, in the August data, 23% of dogs did not receive regular vaccinations, corresponding to 2.3 million dogs.

And when asked why dogs had not received a primary vaccination course, as you can see on the screen, that the two most common reasons given for a dog not receiving it was either being a rescue dog, and so it could well have had the primary cause of the rescue organisation, or an unknown history. But there is a positive story here too. As it appears, the importance of vaccination is overall better understood.

In 2017, of the owners who reported their dogs had not received either a primary vaccine or a regular booster, 22% reported choosing not to do it as it was not necessary, which has now decreased to 14%. And 24% reported choosing not to as their dog doesn't come into contact with other dogs, which has now fallen to 13%. So whilst the overall preventative healthcare dogs received has stagnated in the last 10 years, there appears to be an improvement when it comes to vaccinations.

The exact reason for this, will of course be very difficult to establish with certainty, but I have no doubt that this will be related to the hard work of the veterinary professions and animal welfare professionals when it comes to owner education. I would hope that in the longer term, given the emphasis we currently have on the on the value of vaccinations during this current pandemic, it will help continue this continue to be a positive trend. So moving on to cats.

Again, we see there is an overall steady picture, with no sustained significant change in booster vaccination levels, insurance neutering or parasite control. But there has been a significant increase in the number of cats being microchipped from 46% in 2011 to 74% in 2020. Overall vaccination rates have varied considerably, but have remained consistently lower than what we see in dogs.

And in fact, 3.9 million cats remain unvaccinated, and it's interesting to look at the reason why. The top reasons for cats not receiving a primary vaccination course are very similar to those given by dog owners, and unknown history.

However, the reasons for not having regular boosters are very different, with the top one being that visits to the vet are perceived as stressful for the cat and the owner. Developing a cat friendly clinic is a real opportunity for practises to make the experience for both owners and our fela feline patients less stressful. Not only may this result in better vaccine uptake, but elsewhere in the report it is highlighted that.

Delaying, the, the delays in treatment is a concern for the veterinary profession when it comes to cats. If we as a profession take time to improve the experience of the vet visits for our cats and their owners, this may also mean that treatment is sought earlier in the disease process. And the data on neutering is also interesting.

86% of cats were reported as neutered, having decreased slightly from 92% in 2019. This equates to 1.5 million owned cats still being unneutered.

Early early neutering plays an important role in population control. But there has been a decrease in vets routinely recommending neuring at 16 weeks. BVA supports the neutering of pet cats from 16 weeks, but given this data, it is perhaps a conversation to be restarted amongst the profession.

To understand why we're seeing this downward trend. Is it that vets are concerned about carrying out the procedure in such young animals? Is it not being fully aware of the benefits?

Certainly, I feel there is work to do on this as a profession. Now, when it comes to rabbits, this to me is where the most promising and positive story can be seen with regards to preventative healthcare. Over the 10 years, there has been a dramatic improvement in what is often considered the forgotten pet.

And in fact, there has been a decrease in the number of rabbits receiving no preventative healthcare at all from 23% down to 8%. Uptake of microchipping has increased significantly, with 30% microchipped compared to just 3% in 2011. 57% of rabbits are now neutered compared to 37% in 2011.

Whilst this is an improvement, neutering levels in rabbits are consistently lower than those for cats and dogs. And so it's vital that work continues in this area. But when it comes to vaccines, there has been no significant change over the last 10 years, with over 400,000 rabbits still vaccinated, are still unvaccinated.

And we're looking at the reasons for not vaccinating. As per cats and dogs, there is the unknown history reasons given. But 16% of rabbits do not receive primary vaccinations and 35% do not receive boosters because they do not come into contact with other animals.

This demonstrate that owners do not necessarily understand how a disease like myxomatosis is transmitted. So whilst the veinary profession and charity and welfare sectors have done a brilliant job over the last 10 years on educating owners on rabbit welfare and and their needs, there is still a way to go. And of course, this year has been dominated by COVID.

And the report also looked at its impact on the nation's pets. Early on in the pandemic, in order to protect public health and comply with government regulations, the veterinary profession stopped undertaking preventative healthcare work for 3 weeks from the 23rd of March. At the time, there were real concerns that this would lead to disease outbreaks and population increases, particularly in cats.

Interestingly, the impact on preventative healthcare in dogs and cats was perhaps less than anticipated. In dogs, as you can see on the screen, there was a mild to moderate decline in microchipping and primary vaccination courses. And regular vaccination, regular booster vaccinations decreased from 82% to 77%.

For cats, the picture certainly was more positive than was anticipated. And what is not shown on screen is despite concerns around neutering, there was no change in the frequency in levels of neuterings of cats. And having in my previous slides, having celebrated the progress in preventative healthcare provision for rabbits over the last 10 years, they were impacted the most by COVID.

As you can see, there was a decline in all aspects of preventative healthcare, including vaccination, and the proportion of rabbits receiving no preventative healthcare. However, this is just a snapshot, and I think the longer term impacts of the pandemic may well yet remain to be seen as the economic and social challenges continue. So look into the future.

It's clear to me that there has been so much positive progress when it comes to preventative healthcare of the nation's pets over the last 10 years. But there is still work to do. Vaccination uptake, especially booster vaccinations, overall, remains stubbornly stagnant.

There is a common theme of unknown history being a reason for poor uptake, so we have an opportunity to focus on educating owners that this is, in these cases, the safest and best thing to do is to restart vaccination courses. And actually, if we look at them now, in society, vaccination has been seen as the way out of the current global crisis. With yesterday's news of a vaccination rollout further highlighting the importance and value of vaccinations.

So is COVID an opportunity to emphasise the value of them? Having said that, vaccine hesitancy in the anti anti-vaccine rhetoric is also more prominent. So we as a profession must consider the risk of this overspilling into the veterinary profession's work.

The findings with regards to cats have shown that the perceived stress of bringing a cat into practise is resulting in delays to feline patients being presented to practise in and in the cases of vaccines, preventing them from being vaccinated at all. Longer term it is vital for the profession to consider how we make these visits for our feline patients less stressful. And I would love to see more practises joining the ISFM cat friendly clinic programme.

It has the potential to improve access to veterinary care for our nation's cats. But having questioned whether the COVID provides us with an opportunity when it comes to preventative healthcare, it must also be recognised that COVID also presents a real challenge. Previous financial crashes have resulted in the increased demand for low cost of charity veterinary services.

And as the furlough scheme comes to an end next year and with the rise of unemployment, there will be significant pressures on household finances. And it is likely that preventative healthcare for pets will fall down the priority list as disposable income decreases. It is impossible to foresee the future, but there is a risk that the economic fallout of the pandemic will undo all the good work that has happened over the last 10 years.

So that is a whistle stop tour of the 10 years of the poor report and the progress in terms of preventative healthcare of our nation's pets. Thank you very much for listening and I'd like to hand over to Alex next. So in the next 10 minutes, we're going to be focusing on obesity.

And I think it's fair to say that this is something which has featured heavily in the poor reports across the years. And the 2020 report is no exception. Within there, there are some data about differences in diets, and some of the trends we've seen are positive, others perhaps arguably less so.

There's also some information in the poor report about the impact of COVID and sadly that appears to have somewhat of a negative impact on obesity in our pets. But in the interests of time. The trend that I really want to focus on most is the view of the veterinary profession regarding the welfare issues that they see in their animals.

And in all of the species that surveyed, obesity appears to be one of the key concerns within and amongst all vet professionals. So I just want to explore a little bit about the reasons why that may be. If you're a vet professional, most of you, I'm sure will be aware that we are seeing an increasing prevalence of obesity, and this is actually something which we see globally as well as within the United Kingdom.

These are data from the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention in the USA where they do an annual survey where vets survey body condition score in cats and dogs, and they have spotted an increasing prevalence throughout the years of running that survey. Whilst we don't have quite the same data from the United Kingdom, if you look at scientific reports, you can see a similar trend. So for example, between these two, publications, eight years apart, there was a change in the prevalence of overweight in adult dogs from 57% through to 65%.

So I think one of the things driving vet concerns is this increasing prevalence. But there are other changes which I think are happening at the same time. I run a specialist weight management clinic at the University of Liverpool, and one thing that we have seen is an increase in the severity of obesity in our patients.

I would class severe obesity as animals which are 40% above their ideal weight. The reason 40% is key is that if you look at the 9 point body condition score system, 9 out of 9 equates to 40% above ideal. We at Liverpool use DEXA to measure body composition.

So when we use that measure, we actually see a significant number above that 40% cutoff. Now for data in cats, between 2005 and 2010, 34% of the cats we saw would be classed as having severe obesity. That figure has now climbed to 57%.

So this is a disease that is not just more prevalent, but it's getting more severe for the patients that suffer. Now, a further trend, which I think if anything, is even more concerning is the fact that we're beginning to see obesity present at an earlier age. And this was something we reported in a letter to the vet record in 2018, where from a study that we performed, 30% of dogs that were in their growth phase were already above their ideal weight.

So clearly this is a growing concern for the veterinary profession and I think the views that you see in the poor report reflect that. Sadly, at the moment, there isn't clear evidence that as a profession, we have turned the tide and actually started changing those concerns into actions. This is because, as most of you know, obesity is the elephant in the room.

It is a very tricky topic to discuss with our patients and our owners, and it really is something, therefore, that really is a hurdle that we have to face and get over. A recent study published just about 5 or 6 months ago, I think gave some insight into some of the reasons why vets may find this difficult. This was a paper looking at weight bias, and that's something which is prevalent in society and also prevalent amongst medical professionals.

Effectively, it is the tendency to blame the individual for their plight. And when vets were surveyed, the majority admitted to feeling. activists to feelings such as blame, frustration, and disgust towards people and pets with obesity.

Now clearly that's not something that they're going to voice within the consulting room, but of course if you start with those attitudes and those opinions, it's going to affect the care that is delivered. And in fact, that was another and perhaps more concerning finding of this particular study of recommendations on treatment changed as a result of those attitudes and opinions. So clearly this is a problem that we do need to address.

So with those comments in mind, let's look to the future and maybe think about how we may be able to change to try to make a difference from the pets in our care. First thing I would suggest is we need to change the narrative about obesity, both how we think about it and how we talk about it. I would suggest that all vet professionals should check their own biases, and this can very easily be done on a website such as implicit.harvard.edu.

Whilst you're there, you can check all of your prejudices, including weight bias. The tests that are done only take a few minutes, and it will give you an insight into your own feelings and opinions. It's important to note that implicit bias is often unconscious and therefore you may be able to do little to change that, but knowing you have bias will help because you can then proactively change the way you behave and act within the consulting room.

So I think we do need to be aware of weight bias and we need to try to address this amongst our professional colleagues. A second recommendation would be that we need more formal training for having conversations about obesity. This is an example from the medical profession and, and this is a package of materials that health professionals can use to try to help structure conversations about obesity with parents.

And that's an interesting parallel. And I think we can learn a lot from our medical colleagues about how best to hold those conversations. As a brief guide, there are a few readily transferable principles.

The first, not surprisingly, is to avoid blame. Whatever your opinions about obesity and what might have caused it, it's critical that you park those at the consulting room door because they will not help in the care that you provide. You also need to be careful about terminology and the words you use, so it's important to avoid the F word, fat, and whilst we're on that matter, avoid the O word.

Obesity is the name of the disease that you're treating, but that is a tricky term, particularly for many owners. So it's better to be talking in terms of body shape, body condition or changes in weight as a way of introducing the topic. Thirdly, as I've highlighted, it is important that you proactively treat owners with obesity the same.

You talk to them in exactly the same way. And the way you can do this is by focusing on the pet and showing empathy towards them and also towards the concerns of the owner. And one final thing that comes from the human training within communication is asking permission.

So once you've introduced the topic rather than just giving advice, you simply ask the owner whether they're comfortable having that conversation. That gives them some ownership of what you're you're then gonna advise, and for those who say yes, it makes them more receptive to the advice that you're going to give. So my first guidance, I think in terms of making a difference would be to change that narrative.

Secondly, really just to come on and echo what Danniella has just talked about, I think we need to focus more on prevention of obesity. This is a topic in its own right, but if I were to make one suggestion, I think it's that we need to have a formal measurement programme a little bit again akin to what happens within the NHS. So we need to be focusing on body weight measurements regularly and recognising that we're seeing obesity happen at an earlier and earlier age, that kind of programme needs to start early.

Many of you will be aware that growth charts are available for puppies and growth charts for kittens will be coming soon. Veterinary professionals can then help guide owners in terms of how their puppies and kittens are developing, ensure that they're continuing on the right path. And of course make adjustments where where necessary.

Hopefully by that stage that will improve the number of animals that get to a healthy adult weight, and that weight can then be set as a main a target to maintain throughout the rest of the adult life. So with regular weight checks, you can keep that weight within certain limits. So I'm out of time.

I just want to summarise the key points I think regarding obesity and what we've seen from the poor report. We know that obesity is not only more common, but it's becoming more severe and it's starting earlier in life. As a profession, we need to do more to overcome weight stigma, and we need to hold better conversations, which I think will improve the support we give to our owners.

And I think we need to focus more on prevention and regular weight monitoring is one of the ways that we can spot change and hopefully therefore give guidance where it's needed. Thank you very much. I will just pass over to Sarah.

Thank you very much indeed, Alex, and thank you to PDSA for, inviting me to be involved in this webinar today, and to have been able to study the poor report, which is a really important document, one we look forward to reading every time it's published because it has such good insight and really important material for us to work with. I'm going to diverse a little bit away from the report in terms of looking at the broader picture, because I was asked, oh, my slides are not advancing. There we go.

. I was asked to cover the idea of behaviour and mental well-being of companion animals. And in order to do that and think about what the future holds, I think there are 3 areas, really. There's the broader field of companion animal behaviour and welfare.

And I was asked specifically to talk a little bit about, how things have changed over the years, not just the last 10 years. And then also, in The veterinary profession in relation to emotional health being considered within the field of companion animals. And then I'm going to finish off by going more to the report and think about the domestic context in relation to the pet caregiver, and their understanding of species-specific needs and emotional health, and how that is being, seen reflected in some of the information in this poor report.

So if we look at companion animal behaviour and welfare to start with, I'm going to overlap a little bit here with Chris, which was nice to see. But legislation exists as early as 1835. You saw that picture of Martin on Chris's presentation, and the PEAs Act consolidated the Martin Act, and it extended it to dogs and other domestic animals.

Having started off very much about cattle and, and livestock, etc. We then started to see a change. But it, that was as early as 1835 that dogs were mentioned.

Admittedly, there was the context of things like fighting, at that stage. And there was still a great concentration in terms of welfare on livestock and lab animals. Companion animal welfare certainly became more of a focus around the beginning of the millennium, and I don't want again to overplay stuff that's already been covered by Chris, but just to say, in 1999, the setting up of the Companion Animal Welfare Council obviously after the Bramble report.

In the 60s, there was the Farm Animal Welfare Council, but not until 19, 1999 that we saw that idea being put towards the Companion Animal Welfare Council. And now, more recently, other bodies that I know Chris is involved with, which are looking more broadly at animal welfare. And then the 2006 Animal Welfare Act has already been mentioned.

I'm also going to come back to this particular document in a moment, where specific emphasis on behaviour and training of dogs came into the cork remit with the 2008 report on the regulation of companion animal services in relation to training and behaviour modification of dogs, and that was specifically about dogs at that stage. So, if we think about how interest in companion animal behaviour and welfare has changed over the years, there's certainly been a great increase in research interest. And that's been helped by a variety of different research groups around the around the world.

And I don't want to just look at these two. I'm just giving As examples. So in Hungary, we have the Family Dog project started in 1994, and in Vienna, in Austria, the clever dog lab started in 2007.

And again, you can see these dates do really kind of congregate around the change of the millennium. And as I say, that's not exclusive to those two projects, they're just examples. Now, when we look at the sorts of research that was being done in this field, the initial emphasis was very much on cognition, and there's still very active, valuable research being done in the world of cognition and how that relates to health.

And then, more recently, an increasing interest in emotional research. So considering the emotions of non-human animals, not just companion animals, and obviously, that's the focus of what we're talking about today. And then in 1998, we have the very important publication of a book by an Estonian biologist called Jack Panse, Effective neuroscience, which is looking at the foundations of human and animal.

So, for me, that's human animals and non-human animals, and having emotions in all of them. And that really did lead to a change in the way of thinking within a veterinary sphere about health, and expanding out from our previous concentration on physical health. But it also led to a call for improved standards for clinical activity in the field of companion animal behaviour and welfare, which is much broader, of course, than just the veterinary profession, which is something I'll come on to in a moment.

So when we look at standards for clinical activity around the same time as the PANCE publication, we have some work by the Association for the Study of Animal behaviour, who worked really closely with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, so looking at it from, The, perspective of the non-human animal health, but also looking at the British Psychological Society's angle as well, because of the fact that we were already beginning to think about this being a multidisciplinary, multi-professional sphere. And so, they set up a working party in 1998 to consider the need for certification for people working in clinical behaviour work with companion animals. And from that working party, the certified Clinical Animal behaviour register was launched in 2003, and you can find details of that through the website of the Association for the Study of Animal behaviour.

And then more recently, there's been an organisation set up as recently as February of 2020, the Fellowship of the Animal behaviour Clinicians, which is the professional body that does insist on the ASA CCAB standard for its membership. Now, when we look at this issue of regulation, if we go back to the fact that I said there was the Cork report in 2008, and it highlighted the need for regulation within the field of behaviour and training. And as a result of that report, a very important organisation was born, the formation of the Animal behaviour and Training Council.

And this being an organisation which sought to regulate not only clinical animal behaviour, but the spectrum of roles within the industry. And also to distinguish between those roles as well. And so this is a really important.

Turning point, going away from just dogs as well, so Animal behaviour and Training council wasn't just focusing on dogs, although there is a predominance of canine information because of the nature of dogs, and we'll come back to that a little bit later too. And this, organisation, the Animal behaviour and Training Council, I think one of the most important things was this, this different roles, that there was considered that it was, wasn't just the clinical Animal behaviour role that ASAB had looked at, but also looking at trainers, looking at instructors as well, looking at how people are qualified to actually give information to caregivers. So this is a real broadening of the remit.

And it's supported by a wide range of professional organisations who are involved at the different levels in the ABTC roles. And I've just put the logos up here of the professional member organisations that are involved with ABTC, as I say, across that spectrum of roles. So if we stick with this idea of regulation, and we start to think about the role of veterinary behavioural medicine, then in 1966, of course, the Veterinary Surgeons Act was passed to ensure that animals are treated only by people who are qualified to do so.

And so, of course, the veterinary profession has a, a history of being strongly regulated. But of course there's been an emphasis at that time in 1966, a great emphasis on physical health and no specific consideration, sadly of emotional or cognitive health at that time. So, there's been a lot of changes in terms of the veterinary profession's consideration of health having this triad.

So, this is a concept that's well recognised in human-animal medicine, and in the veterinary sphere, we now talk about health as being both physical, emotional, and cognitive, and also about the fact there is an interplay between each of these aspects of health, which therefore relates to veterinary care. And again, you'll see that the dates start to tip towards that turn of the millennium. In 1995, the Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law Veterinary Association was born.

And around the same time in Europe, there was the onset of the European Society of Veterinary Clinical Ethology, which was looking at this field, at the emerging field of veterinary behavioural medicine. The animal welfare, Science, ethics and Law was more concentrated on the, the, the, those aspects in its title. And, as we know, a little bit later, there's been a, a, a coming together of those two aspects, because they are so inextricably linked together.

But in 1997, under the leadership of what is now called the British Veterinary behaviour Association, although that was called something a lot more, a lot less easy to say, Companion Animal behaviour Therapy Study Group originally. But the BVBA, which is the, the, the next, title of that organisation, we were involved in the first International Veterinary behaviour meeting in Burma. UK and I think Professor Daniel Mills and myself would both claim that this is our most significant personal achievement in the field of behavioural medicine, was the setting up of this meeting, which, as you'll see from the logo, has continued, and was in 2019, held in Washington, USA.

And it's held across the continent. So, it rotates between the different continents, on a biannual basis. And BVBA is an ongoing strong organisation affiliated to the BSABA.

And then in 2002, the European College of Veterinary behavioural Medicine was born, but has now been renamed the European College of Animal Welfare and behavioural Medicine as those two aspects have come together. So what does that really mean for the veterinary profession in terms of our understanding of behavioural medicine? Well, certainly there has been a trend towards incorporation of behavioural medicine into undergraduate curriculum, of different, vet schools.

It's still not uniform, sadly, but it's certainly improving. And there are lots of setting up of veterinary student organisations with special interest in behaviour and welfare. And I've put the logos here are the ones at Liverpool and Edinburgh and Surrey, which are ones I've, I've been involved in, and they're very active.

But I'm sure there's other interest groups as well coming into being. And of course there's been an increase in CPD provision in the field of behaviour and an inclusion of behavioural medicine streams into national and international veterinary congresses. So coming back to how we started looking at the broader field, we need to also think about how veterinary behavioural medicine and the broader field of clinical behaviour outside of the profession come together.

And collaboration within the profession has also been important, so collaboration between behavioural medicine and other veterinary disciplines, as evidenced by a lot of papers, just some examples here. Firstly, the one I'm sure you're all familiar with, is the FIC story, and that was probably the turning point of it being taken seriously in the profession. And then research into the field of behavioural medicine highlighting links with physical, emotional and cognitive health, culminating, most recently in this very important paper in animals by Professor Daniel Mills and his colleagues about pain and behaviour.

And there's been some mention of the cat friendly practise scheme by ISFM. And we also have a real need to have a dog friendly practise scheme, not yet available because of holdups related to COVID, but watch the British Veterinary behavioural Association for their role in making sure that dogs don't get forgotten in this area. And then the need for the veterinary led team from BBVA, this idea of this hub and spoke model, and now, the role of RCVS regulation to bring together this idea of a veterinary led team with other people working in the field of clinical companion animal behaviour.

So I want to just finish then by looking at the poor report and looking at the impact of considering wellbeing and behaviour on pet caregivers. Well, I think what's really important, one very important thing about this poor report is that the well-being section highlights the link between the welfare of pets and the welfare of their caregivers. And really encouragingly, 89% of dog caregivers and 84% of cat caregivers said in this report that their pet positively contributes to their mental health.

So are there concerns? Well, sadly, yes. 77% of cat caregivers, 89% of dog caregivers, and 56% of rabbit caregivers stated in this report that they would like to change at least one behaviour of their pet.

And these concerns were reflected in information from the veterinary profession as well, saying that they were aware of an increase in caregiver concern. 53% said that there was an increase in owners seeking advice over the last two years for behavioural issues. 66% were routinely recommending referral, and that's a very encouraging statistic.

So we saw increases of about 61% in the presentation of noise phobia in the last two years, 46% saying they've seen an increase in dog euthanasia within their professional context, related to behavioural issues. So yes, there are concerns. When I look at the concerns between the different species, though, we do see some differences.

Canine considerations are listed here, 75% of owners here wanting to change one or more behaviours. But look at the ones that were here in the 24% at the top of this list is pulling on the lead. Well, pulling on the lead may have emotional components, but may also, of course, be related to training and cognition.

And interesting statistics in the poor report say that 12% of dog caregivers have not trained their dog at all. So I think we also, as well as thinking about emotional health, need to be remembering that cognitive health and learning is also crucial. And in this lovely infographic from the poor report, it's saying that 40% had attended some kind of course or training class.

14%, though, had had 1 to 1 training, so taking out the social benefits of the training situation. And I think the two striking things for dogs that I just wanted to highlight were the fact that a lack of appropriate socialisation was one of the main causes reported from veterinary professionals for the increase in behavioural issues. They also felt worried about not understanding canine behaviour and communication, and not thinking about emotional and mental stimulation.

But if we look at the responses from the caregivers, there was actually a decrease in the proportion of caregivers who told us that they would check whether they, their puppy had had a good start in life before they agreed to purchase them in terms of their emotional health. If we look at cats, then we can see here there's a lot of natural behaviours on these behaviours which owners would like to change. And I think one of the things that highlights in the poor report is the understanding of natural feline behaviour.

There were 41% of cat givers who wanted to change behaviours that could be related to physiological stress. So that would mean having an emotional component, and they're listed here. And one thing that we also saw in this report, which is quite a worrying percentage, is that 20% of cats live with one or more cats who don't get on with them.

So living in a state of social tension. And coming from that, go back to this misunderstanding of natural behaviour in this species. This infographic infographic looked at the resource distribution.

And if we think about the ISFM AFP guidelines on environmental needs, we know that one of them is the provision of multiple separate resources. And this infographic shows us that this is a message we really do need to be working on. And then finally, rabbits.

And rabbits, again, when we look at the things that were causing concern for caregivers in relation to behaviour, we can see, again, many natural, normal behaviours. So an understanding of the species being really important in what we're needing to do to change these trends. 22% of rabbit caregivers thought their pet was bored, and 15% thought they were stressed.

But interestingly, what the difference was seen when we looked at the optimal state of housing that these animals were being kept in. If they were in suboptimal housing, 30% of caregivers were going to want to change something in that rabbit's behaviour, compared to 15% of those caregivers, if the rabbits were in optimised environments. And so my final thing from the poor report is this comparison of the veterinary view in terms of welfare, which ties in with what Alex was just talking about.

And we can see that when we look at our concerns as a profession in terms of welfare, then we have got an overlap here with physical health. And emotional and cognitive health. So our concerns relate to things like chronic stress in cats, things like, small hutches, so inappropriate environments for rabbits, and things like, the, exaggerated, confirmation welfare of breeding in dogs.

So these illustrate that interplay. So my conclusions are that considerable advances have been made in understanding companion animal welfare over recent years. Research has hugely contributed to our understanding of non non-human animal cognition and emotion.

And that has led to a recognition in the veterinary profession of the health triad in non-human animals. So my considerations for the future. Improved recognition of veterinary behavioural medicine is crucial, along with an increase in interprofessional collaboration in the field of clinical companion animal behaviour.

That is associated with the vet led team approach and the successful progress of our CVS involvement in regulation. And then improved education and support for our companion animal caregivers. So, thank you very much for listening.

I'm going to hand over to Richard now, who's going to be the next speaker. Thank you everybody, I've got the topic to talk about which, unfortunately brings back the word COVID, and we want to look at the impacts of COVID-19 on the affordability of veterinary care and really sort of outline a little bit of how that's impacted across the profession, and in PDSA and how we might predict that that might have further pet welfare impacts going forward. And it's fair to say that we know that primarily the pandemic is, of course, a human medical emergency, but we must also look out for and prepare ourselves to deal with some inevitable adverse impacts on pet welfare.

We can also, I think, reasonably predict that what will follow will be a significant economic crisis, and again, no doubt would result in further potential pet welfare adverse impacts. And we have had to adapt service delivery across the, our frontline teams to keep both them safe and the public safe. And that's been across the entire vetting profession and a huge amount of work to ins instigate sort of COVID safe ways of working, but we all know that they have, those measures themselves have huge impacts in terms of efficiency.

And that will go on to impact, no doubt, the affordability and the availability of veterinary care and potentially in all settings. Significant adaptations have, and I think will continue to take place and we've seen, The rapid adoption of things like digital care and with that, I dare say we'll get new challenges, but also I guess some, some new opportunities. And as Daniela was talking during the lockdown, we actually saw some significant changes to the profiles of veterinary work that's being undertaken.

And I guess to a greater and to some lesser extents, those changes will continue to persist and may well do so for for for some time to come. Treatment services and preventive care may even become, again, a point Daniella made earlier, less affordable to the, to the public, when we start to see the economic impacts, and indeed, when we think back to the banking crisis, whilst there was a lag, what did follow was a dramatic rise in demand, certainly for for charitable veterinary care. And I think alongside the sort of firsthand information that we gain from from delivering services and our real-time experiences, reports such as Paul will really help and assist us and help us to plan and predict some of the effects of the pandemic on pet welfare.

So, just a little bit more detail, and I, I now unashamedly will focus on how COVID has impacted on our, er, charitable, er, veterinary services in PDSA. But I know that the impacts that we've experienced are not unique to us, of course, and like all practises we've had to. That with the implementation of things like social distancing, using smaller team units, reducing the amount of contact that we have with our clients, dramatically increasing the amount of, digital remote support that we provide.

And had to make some difficult and challenging decisions in terms of how we prioritise treatment and we've been having to make decisions around that prioritisation, to, to enable us to, to manage the, the, the, the service when it is less efficient in terms of some of the measures above. And I think all of that brings some impacts of course, on our, on our own teams, the, the, the, the obvious impacts and needs sometimes for self isolation, the requirement for us to protect extremely clinically vulnerable and clinically vulnerable colleagues, and of course, all the impacts that we have seen on our team's wellbeing and, and, and general morale and and having to work and adapt in in very challenging and difficult circumstances. And I think there's been some significant changes in the profile, as I say, of, of work, and this just gives you some insight into how dramatic, they are, and you can see as sort of week 1011 of the year when lockdown came in.

How all of these graphs dramatically change in their shape and distribution patterns. And we saw, very, very quickly, nearly overnight, we moved, and, and continued to have done remote consultations from our direct consultations that we would generally do. And since March, we've delivered over half a million remote consults, and that compares to around 150,000 direct ones, and that would normally be the other way around in terms of volumes.

We've seen dramatic changes in the amount of diagnostic work that we were able to undertake. And our surgical procedures are also significantly down. Our only constant around surgery is the amount of emergency surgery, of course, that we're we're undertaking.

And because of the impacts on our ways of working, and as I say, I don't think we're on our own, but perhaps because of the nature of our work profile in the first place, we've seen some dramatic impacts on the amount of preventive procedures that we've been able to undertake. So some real big changes there. It's just focusing on surgery, again, this graphics shows some, some dramatic changes in, in, in, in the availability of, of, of our surgical and the surgical profile that we're unable to undertake.

So the total number of surgeries reduced, the types of surgery, you know, again, in terms of the ratios and balances is clearly changed. We are undertaking the same number. Of life saving operations, but all other surgeries are, are down significantly.

And I think when we think about the long term impacts of some of this, we know that we're delaying procedures that we would have historically provided that would have improved the welfare of our patients. And when we talk about providing emergency services, clearly at the moment, that is truly what what we do actually mean. And I think all that's on, on, on, on a background of thinking about the real long term risks with this sort of approach, and it's a necessary approach in order that we can keep our team safe, clients safe, but also make sure we can attend to the emergencies that absolutely need our interventions.

And I think we have, you know, have to make, and the whole profession has made some phenomenal adaptions . And to make sure that we deliver our services in a COVID secure way. But this approach isn't without its risks or issues, and it is not in the long term either desirable or a sustainable approach.

And of course, there, there are these risks, you know, we, we absolutely recognise the long-term pet welfare impact, you know, delaying interventions that previously would have provided a a resolution, and that's not dissimilar to what's happening and reported upon in terms of the NHS has it has to reprioritize its work and a backlog then builds. We also know that employee engagement in terms of that very different work profile can have an impact in terms of job satisfaction. We know also that clients are unlikely to remain in a long term picture understanding of the service, that, that they are available to them, and that's something we have to be very open and transparent about in our, in our communication to try and manage that client engagement as well.

I think as the Economic impacts begin to take a grip, we will see additional demand for for services, and without further investment, we would, we would be constrained in the amount that we can recover in terms of the range of treatments we're able to provide. And we as an organisation will will be investing to try and make sure that we can recover some of the scope of the services that we want to be able to provide to our clients. The speed and scale though of the additional demands placed on the service as that secondary economic impact comes in is a really important factor.

So there's a real double whammy here. There's the inefficiencies and impacts of operating in a very different way, layered on it and to come at some point will be an additional demand as well. And when that comes, the speed at which it comes, and the duration for which it will remain is is yet unknown.

But it is likely to have some impacts, and we will, as an organisation are committed to doing everything we can do to try and meet that challenge, make the investment, where we need to recruitment, change our physical space, adapt and change further our ways of working. And I think when we look forward to the next few years and you know, we can reasonably predict that the pandemic will continue to have a material impact for some time to come. We know that social distancing and COVID secure ways of working will be in place for a significant period and impact upon all of our abilities to operate as efficiently as previously we'll have been able to.

And I think those things come into play, and you know, both in the private setting and in the charitable setting, you know, the relative ability of a client, a fee paying client to afford care well they too have to prioritise what they can afford and what impact does that have in terms of the, the pets preventive healthcare provision. We can predict that there will probably be some further waves. We've we've got a long way to go with both vaccine and mass screening, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

But all of that said, the true economic impact is yet to materialise, and we would reasonably expect that the demand for for charitable services will increase. And we as an organisation have predicted that in. We've built that into our plans over the next few years, and it does come at a cost, which we will, look to invest into.

When we look at the demand, because that is an important indicator in terms of our ability to deliver services, this is data way back in May of this year. And you can see just how immediate the effect is in terms of the pandemic upon the the benefit claimants and who would potentially become eligible for the use of our services. We also saw quite significant variance as well, so it's not always exactly geographically evened out.

And we also have an online eligibility tool and certainly during the summer, we saw much higher levels of, of, of, of people coming onto our Chequer to see if they would become or could be, could utilise PDSA's services. And when we start to think about that economic impact, that, you know, coming our way, and some of the impacts it would have on the private. Profession for veterinary services as well.

We certainly using our modelling, would say that for every 1 million additional universal Credit claimants, we would expect to see some additional 50,000 pets presented to us, so sort of 20% more, so that, that in itself will bring us some significant challenges going forward. I think just to finish with, I think to look to the future, we need to do so quite broadly when we're thinking about the impacts on pet welfare from from the impacts of a pandemic. And really look for insight to help us plan and best prepared to mitigate the impacts of that, you know, of that event.

I definitely think there's some questions there, so, you know, we, we have, have the pet ownership trends been impacted. And I think Paul and other reports will help us to really understand this, and will become important in our planning and provide us with robust evidence, to make sure that the interventions we put in place are focused and effective. We've got other questions such as how long will it be required that veterinary services have to absorb some of the financial consequence of remaining COVID safe.

Many practises in the private sector, of course, are businesses and they have to generate a profit to be viable. And what's the impact in terms of affordability? Does that cause price inflation, what are the impacts on the client's disposable income because of the wider economic impacts?

There are some really big issues in here. And as a the the secondary impacts of the pandemic, will that lead to further pet health and welfare consequences. We have to be realistic and think very carefully about what's the ability of charities such as PDSA to support this sort of magnitude of additional extra demand for help.

And that that's something we, we have to have in our long term plans and it has to be sustainable and affordable on that long term basis. And I think importantly, we have to think about how the wider veterinary sector needs to plan and respond and how the wider charity sector, and I include in that the the animal welfare and and and and some of the human poverty charities, about how we manage some of these impacts because without doing so in a proactive way, the adverse impacts on, on pet wellbeing will will will will will will come to fruition. My hope certainly with the latter two, is that through collaboration and and working in harmony, recognising some of the challenges across the sector, that together though, we can mitigate some of these impacts.

And I think we can take some assurance that our veterinary teams, since the beginning of the pandemic, have been incredibly innovative. They've managed significant challenges already and absolutely remain dedicated and committed to the pets in in their care. And I think to conclude, we will absolutely need to find ways to minimise the pet welfare impacts of what is a human pandemic.

And I'm sure that we will, and I'm confident that we can, and with the right outlook, the right approach and working together with the right insight, we can work effectively to minimise some some some of these impacts. So thank you. And I'll hand over to Sean now, thank you.

Thanks very much, Richard. In this final slot, I'll approach the, the question of what pet wellbeing might look like in the years ahead with, humility, and not least because we're in a time of great uncertainty and unpredictability. Nevertheless, I think we can continue to, build on others reflections that we've heard so far about some of the trends, trajectories, and our collective aspirations for pet wellbeing, and offer those reflections.

Ahead of our of our panel discussion. So I think what we can certainly all agree with, and that's been reiterated through all of the presentations so far, is, is what we want. Ethically, we want our companion animals, our pets to be healthy and happy in return for the substantial benefits that they confer to us of both enjoyment and meaningful companionship.

And interpreted legally, that means meeting their five welfare needs under the UK legislation, the UK's so-called Quality of Life Act. But we know, both from clinical experience and the objective data that, a mass initiative like PO provides, that we don't meet all of those needs all of the time, and we, are plagued and frustrated by persistent preventable problems. These are two of our headlines from the poor, the first poor and the, the most recent one.

And just to, to mention. Although we have seen improvements, we have seen improvements over 10 years, and we mustn't lose sight of those. Nevertheless, some things have remained unchanged.

For example, the length of time that dogs are typically left alone for, the resource provision that Sarah talked about in, in multi-cat households, and the percentage of owners who did no research before getting a pet. So there's work to be done. So I'd like to swiftly offer 10 related observations and we'll, we'll throw them into the mix to potentially build on in the discussion.

The first is that in the broader animal welfare field in recent years, there's been a shift in emphasis, echoing the aspiration of, of, of our animal welfare acts towards positive welfare. So this isn't simply sparing animals under human stewardship, the worst of what can become them, but positively seeking that they, that they have an enjoyable life where possible and a good life. This piece of work looked at the evolution of teaching of animal welfare in the European veterinary schools in recent years.

This was published in the journal Animals, and you can see there that the promotion of positive states of animal welfare was seen as a topic of utmost importance, reflected through an increase from 59% of European vet schools teaching this in 2012 to 98% in 2019. That sentiment is also coming through consensus policy statements, from, from veterinary associations, this international one published this year by the vets of Europe, Canada and the United States saying that animals should experience both a good life and a humane death where that's applicable. And of course the, the, the challenge for us applying that in the companion animal setting.

Is that lots of people do aspire to provide their their pets with a good life, but we need to make sure, as we've heard so many times, that we align that aspiration with with what the animals actually want and need from their perspectives. So humanization, increasing humanization remains a risk. We've seen an increasing focus and clarification of the veterinary profession's role in animal welfare advocacy.

Clarifying that of course we need to continue advocating the best interests of animals under our care, where where we're treating them and concurrently as as part of a dual responsibility and pandemic permitting, of course, that we that we speak up, that we advocate for their best interests at the population level, we challenge the status quo of animal use and we seek to address root cause problems, particularly at the levels of our practises in communities and our associations having strong national voices. And we've seen examples of this in recent years through BVA's Breed to Breathe campaign and the It Takes Two campaign from BVA, BSAVA and BVZS promoting appropriate companionship for rabbits. And I think we're only going to see more of this veterinary animal welfare advocacy, which of course then fits into the interdisciplinary field, that we all occupy, so it will help to magnify and amplify what we're all doing.

I think there's clear opportunity for both further novel veterinary approaches to some of these problems, but particularly wider rollout of novel veterinary approaches, that we've developed in recent years. I would give the examples of PDSA's pet wise MOTs, which are a consult consultation framework structured around the five welfare needs are essentially a wellness consultation. Where we have appropriately, position and sensitive conversations about, someone's pattern, the extent to which they're having their five welfare needs met with recommendations made where necessary.

We've done thousands of those, and similar, similar approaches now can be expanded across the profession. You've heard a couple of times about our which pet consultation framework model that's backed by BVA that has clear opportunity to be rolled out further. And others like the, the approach that Alex has mentioned, the, the puppy growth chart approach as part of our prevention to pet a beta, that can be, can be built on, and we'll see benefits from it.

Sarah talked about the evolution of the veteran profession's attitude and approach to properly accounting for the mental well-being of animals. I think we've clearly seen progress in this area, and I share Sarah's optimism. The It Takes Two campaign is just one example, that is about the mental well-being of, of rabbits, although, of course, with links to their physical health.

The communications that PDSA puts out, not least in light of the poor reports around, companionship needs and dogs. And as Sarah said, this increasing professionalisation of behaviour and training services, through the Animal behaviour and Training Council, not least which PDSA fully supports, I think that's going to increase awareness and confidence amongst vets and vet nurses, and we'll see more, widespread delivery of and, and further good initiatives like Dogs Trust, Dog School, and several of our hospitals are working with Dogs Trust to help roll that out in communities. 5, I'd reflect on the stakeholders who can actually bring change to bear in the way that we aspire to.

There are very many people who are responsible for companion animal welfare. But if we think of just some of them, I can then look at levers for possible change in the next few slides. First up, retailers and this idea of choice editing.

So in 2013, we show an example of this when pets at home, decided to stop selling rabbit muesli from shelves, the traditional mix of seeds and seeds and flakes that we know are associated with both physical health problems and, emotional health problems. But still here in 2020, veterinary professionals, 90% of them are saying that they would like to see rabbit measly removed from sale completely. And 98% of veterinary professionals in this year's pool continue to say that they feel rabbit hutches, smaller than a minimum recommended size should be banned from sale.

So choice editing is a potential mechanism that we may wish to discuss further. What's about the role of legislation and the potential for further legislative interventions? Well, I would give the example here, back to the the brachycephalic problem, the problem of selective breeding, inadvertently selecting for health harms, .

And as we've been closely involved with this problem, we've seen, even just in recent months, but certainly in recent months and years, a flurry of interest in various countries, in legislation as a tool to helping tackle the problem, those being in the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, and indeed here in the UK, be that, introducing new legislation, such as the, the Dutch example at the top, or interpreting existing legislation. And through the UK brachycephalic Working Group, we're keeping a close eye on that to see how that those approaches may influence and contribute to our ongoing work. A reflection that we have talked previously a lot about education, awareness raising, but I think there's been a shift towards.

Embracing the, the, the social science of human behaviour change. So a lot of these issues aren't so much just about making people aware of them, but it's actually helping understand their perspective, building close, meaningful, professional, effective relationships with them, thinking about our language exactly in the way that Alex talked about in his obesity presentation. So I think that will be a theme that continues into the years ahead.

Pre-purchase, we've had a whole session dedicated to it, but for me it, it, and many others it is the holy grail of addressing the root cause of so many of these problems. There's a clear opportunity for the vet for the veterinary professions to increase their offering of. Repurchase consultations.

We, we cite quite low percentages at the moment of people who are accessing vet and vet nurse advice, but we mustn't forget it is increasing. 4% to 6% is an increase, and that's from something of a standing start. But the opportunity is clearly there to reposition ourselves in the minds of the of of prospective pet owners.

And we will inevitably reflect on how easy it is to acquire pets and perhaps we might like to see an adaptation of the less and better type approach where fewer pets overall, are owned, but, husbanded to a higher standard. And finally, some thoughts, some expansionist thoughts. These certainly aren't all necessary on, necessarily on PDSA's plate, but collectively we might think about how do we go about introducing this sort of credible, population scale monitoring of five welfare needs to other species that we don't currently, such as guinea pigs, rats, hamsters.

What if our peer-reviewed methodology was applied elsewhere, internationally? Some of other countries, Switzerland springs to mind, have very progressive animal welfare legislation. How are their pets faring and where would we, where would we rank globally in the extent to which we're meeting the needs.

And for me, to think ahead 10 years, is absolutely to think about a pressing problem that will be at the front of all of our minds, sustainability, . This links, I guess, both to COVID and to our relationship with with animals. Both are about our relationship with non-human animals in the natural world.

And all I would say here is that as we inevitably and and necessarily increase our focus on the climate and biodiversity emergencies, we mustn't forget the quality of lives of the animals, the sentient animals that we share our lives with and benefit from. And to make sure, help make sure that is happening, a good life for animals is incorporated in the veterinary sustainability goals, advocated by the organisation Vet Sustain. I think that's gonna be become a dominant theme, in the years ahead, if I may, if I may, humbly.

Conjecture. Thank you very much. Thanks very much, Sean, that's fantastic.

So if I can ask all speakers to pop their, cameras back on and join me on the screen. Thank you very much and thank you so much to all of you. That was, incredible.

I think it was seen by the, the chat going, really getting really busy, and lots of questions coming in, how inspired everyone's been by, the way you've positioned, your sort of expert view of the findings and, and the wider issues. We're going to, literally gallop through some questions now. Unfortunately, we won't have quite as much time as we wanted to because.

Technical issues at the beginning, but hopefully, the webinar that will be kind enough to grace us a few minutes, given our, our slightly later start. So to go straight into some questions, Chris, I'm going to kick off with you, if you don't mind. Why do we think that pet owners are so unaware of the animal welfare legislation, the five welfare needs in particular?

Why is this message just not getting across? I think it's many things, Vicky, that unless there's a lot of publicity about it and a lot of influences, if I can use the modern term, raise it as an issue, I don't think messages do get over to the public. One of the sad reflections somebody else mentioned it is, is the me too, and I want it I want it now attitude of modern society.

And I think people are much more self-centered than they were, even 10 years ago, certainly 20 or 30 years ago. And it's also misunderstanding, and I think everybody's mentioned this misunderstanding of animal behaviour, what animals' needs really are, as opposed to what humans think they are and what's convenient for their human carer. Thank you.

Any other thoughts for panellists on that one? People who know me will, will be chortling as I say this, but, social media, which I have nothing to do with, but, but I do realise that it's incredibly important, and, and thankfully there are younger people around it, but I do think. Unfortunately, we have to change the way we try to get messages across.

We have to not use traditional messaging that we are more familiar with, and certainly myself and and others of our generation are more familiar with, but we have to work to message in a way that will be picked up by people and. That's that short sharp message which I think maybe some, some of us struggle with compared to traditional messaging. Absolutely, that's come through really strongly in the chat actually, lots of enthusiasm around going to where these conversations are happening, some of these influencing groups, some of these, you know, wider groups driven by concerned pet owners around a key issue, whether it be vaccination.

Or or or or something more feeding, breeding, so yeah, perhaps go to where the conversation is somehow we we need to stop celebrities buying brachycephalic dogs, you know, and all, all of those sort of parallel issues, you know, every, every time David Beckham buys a pug, everybody wants a pug. Bulldog. Yeah, yeah.

I can hear. O'Neill and the bracky working group cheering in the various corners of the country. So just to to to move on to a similar point.

So I wonder Daniella and Joe, we still got Daniella, she may have had to leave us know. So Joe in particular, how enthusiastic of the veterinary professions in encouraging the general public to consult them before they buy a dog or indeed any pet? I think generally it's something that we all want to do.

I do think we're all under extreme pressures at the moment in practise, and it's incredibly difficult and intense. So probably the thought of asking people to do something else right now isn't gonna be appreciated, I suppose, because everybody is stretched. But I think we need to look at the different ways that we can reach them, and it's not holding a consultation in the clinic necessarily.

So for example, I've got a nurse who's very keen. And wants to start doing podcasts that we can then share on our social media. And maybe just going into that route of communication a bit more is something that we can all manage at the moment.

It complies with social distancing because we're not getting them into the, into the clinics, and we can start getting the message heard by more people. And I think if we start to show the different ways that we can, reach out to the public, it will become more achievable. Fantastic, thank you.

One, a bit more specifically now, Alex, this one's I I believe for you. Do you feel the pet food industry should take some responsibility for protection against overfeeding in pets? The, the, question suggested, body condition score guides on pet food labels, discouraging overfeeding of treats, etc.

I think it's a great, a great question. I think in reality there's lots of stakeholders that, that need to take responsibility and certainly I think pet food manufacturers would be amongst them. I think in fairness, maybe some companies do better than others already.

I certainly think we need to improve guidance both on packet and beyond, . There is a challenge, of course, with the packet to what you put on there because there's always limited space. And one thing we always have to remember sadly is that any guide is only ever an average.

And we know from scientific studies that there's so much variability individually that it's never possible to sort of create a, a sensible sort of one size fits all within the limits available. I think the only way really of knowing truly what an individual's requirements are is, follow with body weight, a little bit of how I mentioned in the talk by essentially, adjusting food intake to what the body weight is of that individual. But I just want to sort of.

And pick up on a point that Jo mentioned her talk about pre-purchase. One thing she said there was that the vet profession should be taking a lead on that, and I certainly agree. But I think also giving good guidance about nutrition should be what we as vet professionals own.

Fantastic. There's also been several questions around er treating, and I wondered, Sarah, if, if you had any thoughts on that in in regards to obviously behaviour and training issues, use of treats. Yes, it is, it is a big issue.

And obviously, what we're looking at in, the context of behavioural change is to try and increase positive or engaging emotional bias. So, we're trying to use things that trigger those, those positive engaging emotions, and food is one of them. It's not the only one.

So there are lots of other triggers we could use, social company, toys for some, some individuals. Play of an object style, all these sorts of things as well. So I think sort of increasing education about other triggers for, engaging emotional bias would be important.

But also, where, where does the food come from that you're using? It does not have to be treats. And I think my biggest concern is when people say an animal is not food motivated and therefore they're.

Massively increasing the value of the treats, is the, the reason animals are, are not food motivated is that food motivation is no longer the predominant emotion. Food motivation is there. It has to be biologically, all animals are motivated by food.

It's not possible not to be. And therefore, our question is, why is it not the predominant emotion? And if that's the case, then are we actually neglecting to treat the protective emotion that's blocking that food motivation?

So instead of raising the value of the treat, which means more calories, look at what is the protective emotion that's present, that's reducing the predominance of that emotion, if you like. So, I would just change my way of looking at it a little bit, rather than just give more and more tasty, i.e., more calorific treats.

Thank you, that's really interesting. I hope that helps everyone who was referencing that in the chat panel. This is now a, a sort of wider thought, so do the panellists have any thoughts on the future impacts of the increasing number of dogs coming from overseas, particularly in terms of health and behavioural issues, the availability of resources to deal with issues, and the availability of owners that are suitable for dogs with such issues?

I don't know if anyone wants to indicate if they've got an interest in picking that one up. Chris. I think two issues here, Vicky.

One is the puppies that are coming from overseas and the immediate welfare issues for them, both in terms of their rearing and therefore social, social contact in their early years of life or early weeks of life, and what that's going to do, and of course the imported disease risk. So That's that's one issue. There is a second issue, of course, and that is dogs that are being imported from, what are so-called street dogs, that you have a dog there that's that's spent its life living on the street, never been constrained, never been on a lead.

Somebody picks it up, puts it in a cage, and drives it from Romania to England and expects the dog to become a house dog. And, and so I think there are two quite distinct issues there. The answer to the first one is a minimum age of import, and there's a lot of work going on about that at the moment, either doing it through 12 week wake up wait after vaccination, which is the preferred method, or simply a ban of import until they're 66 months old.

Thank you. Any other thoughts on that one? Sara.

I, I think the . The second issue you raised there, Chris, in terms of this sad perception that our lifestyle has to always be the best, and that is not true for non-human animals any more than it is for human animals, to suggest that living in one cultural method is the only way, and therefore, we're all doing everybody a favour to put them in our cultural sphere. That's just not true.

And so, yeah, I think more emphasis on neuter and release programmes, in these other places so they can be neutered and left in their context where they actually are suited. I feel very strongly about this matter. So yes, I think, it's something we, we desperately need to do something about, and the puppies as well, of course.

Absolutely. I think one of the things with Paul is it does raise such a breadth of issues which we couldn't hope to dig down into and tackle in, in the, the detail that they deserve, but hopefully it will serve to engage others and, and we'll have lots of ongoing engagement on all of these individuals. Issues through various fora.

This, this next question's for Sean. Sean, you talked about the importance of sustainability. Do you think the vet profession should be more vocal on issues such as the environmental toxicity of products such as ectoparasitic agents or anything else?

Thank you. When we think about animal welfare and how we treat other animals, in the context of, myriad pressing global problems, clearly it's important, but not all important, but it is important both because it helps us meet other goals and, it, there's an intrinsic value to animals. We should, it's the right thing to do to treat them well as sentient animals.

I think there's a big shift in the vet profession to recognising that, we're sitting with here with Joe. BVNA on our panel, who is championing sustainability in her presidential year, as is the president of the Society of practising Veterinary Surgeons at the moment, and both BVA and our CVS are making sustainability commitments. The organisation I mentioned Vet Sustain are looking at exactly that issue that, has been raised in the chat.

So the, the short answer, even though it's lengthy, is yes, we absolutely should, and increasingly we are, and there's a lot of healthy debate to be had on those important topics. Fantastic. Thank you.

So, again, a wider question, it's been noted that some of the most significant changes identified in poor have been driven by legislative change, such as mandatory dog microchipping or change in retailer commitments, to drive, the increase in rabbits being fed a more suitable diet than muesli, the muesli type that we're familiar with. What would you consider to be the most effective way to drive improvements in pet welfare? I'm gonna ask Richard for his thoughts on that one.

Thank you, I think it's quite an interesting one, isn't it? I think it, it very much depends on identifying which areas of priority and working through, I think, the, the different ways to try and achieve the outcome that you want, and it is carrot and stick, and yes, you can find some legislative change that's been incredibly effective, microchipping would be a good example. But there's also legislative changes we've been talking about and which Paul was built upon in terms of the five welfare needs and the legal duty of care.

We have legislation, there's codes of practise that underpin it. There's plenty of information about what the right thing to do is. It doesn't always lead to the outcome that you, you desire in terms of an improvement.

So I think you have to be really careful about the role of legislation. And and, and how much you rely upon it to achieve the outcome that you wish to achieve. And in some instances, it's incredibly effective in some absolutely no effect ineffective, you know, completely ineffective.

So I think it's about selecting the right. Topic and it's about finding every single mechanic to try and change human behaviour, which I think is something that we have all started to recognise and even, you know, government has recognised, to change people's outlook, what's important to them, and how you indicate that effectively and use different channels that are relevant to the audience. You know, we talk about pre-purchase and things like that, .

Clients, clients won't come to us, we have to find ways of getting to them and being able to communicate in a way that's that's appropriate, that understands the emotional drive to purchase a puppy. And all the influences that will affect that decision and how we can try and find the right interventions at the right point, with the right language in the right way to make people rethink, you know, what can be a very emotional decision making process. So I think, I think, I think it it it does depend on the topic and the issue as to how best to approach it.

Legislation is not always necessarily the thing that will drive sustained behavioural change in people's approach to the to the pets. Absolutely. Does anyone else have any thoughts on that one?

I I think it, it, it might be worth just mentioning the Human behaviour Change for Animals organisation and how important their work is in encouraging us to think of what Richard was just saying, that the only way to change is to understand how humans change behaviour and it is so complex. And, and there's massive need to educate ourselves about how humans respond and. So yeah, I think that, that organisation, Human behaviour Change for Animals is doing really important work, I think, which could help in this finding the right way to message.

I agree. I legislation is the stick. We need a huge carrot as well, and we somehow we have to get over to owners that the, the, the right choice pet and the right upbringing for their pet is, is of a a positive benefit to them.

You know, it's got to be personal to them, not easy to do, but that's what we've got to do somehow. Absolutely, absolutely. The guys are just putting the link to some of those HBCA resources in the chat.

I believe a lot of their, talks are online on YouTube, so yeah, really great to get everyone engaged with us, Sean. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, just reflecting, I used to work in a pet shop when I was 16 and I had no training and I didn't know what I was doing basically, . In the 2018 legislation that Chris mentioned, I would, I would now have to be trained and provide point of sale information, on pet health and welfare to someone buying a pet, and I'd love to see how that legislation is being implemented, the uptake, the impact, but it feels as though there's, some, some significant potential there that wasn't when I was a.

Unruly teen. Fantastic. There's a thought.

So fantastic. Does, does anyone have any closing remarks before I just attempt to sum up the session? I'm just very aware that the time we've taken a little bit of extra time to make up for our gremlins at the start.

I I just wanted to just to build just on what Sean said there that I think that is a bit of a worry which is where information, where where owners access information. And often it may be a pet shop and whilst the training may be better, I still again think it should be the veterinary profession that takes the lead at providing all of this information about all of the topics we've discussed today. Fabulous.

So over to Joe then. To answer on behalf of the veterinary profession. Yeah, well, I agree, but it is just trying to reach them, isn't it?

It's trying to reach, reach the public. They're not going to come into us, as we've said in, in different talks before, we need to find ways to get out to them as well. And we have the bath.

I, I work in a pet store, and so we have the, the whole chain of them going through the first point of call. Backward and then going back down to the pet store as well. So I think sometimes we overwhelm people with information and they don't know where the best source of their information is.

So having sort of aligned focuses, making it into bite-sized chunks and making it really easily accessible is our way to to educate people going forward. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

So just to sort of falls, falls to me, just to thank our, again, our tremendous speakers, and thank the players of the People's Postcode Lottery for their funding, which has enabled this whole project in such a challenging year for, for charities, to thank everyone who's worked on this project from the. First ever report in in 2011, you'll all know who you are, and to all of you for joining us today and for your support. We always write on the back cover of the report that we can't do this alone, and that's never been truer than now.

The pandemic has caused huge huge issues across the whole sector. But it's forged incredible working relationships and collaborations with the veterinary professions, animal welfare organisations and charities, all working together to support pet owners, to challenge misinformation and to help get help to the most vulnerable owners, all at a time when we were being asked not to leave our homes. So I, I'd like to thank everyone working on the front lines and to everyone.

To enable these vital services to continue. Please do get in touch with the team here at PDSA if you have any further questions or would like to collaborate further on research work, if we haven't been able to get your questions today, and you'd really like to find something out, the email's on the back of the report and Em and Linn will be popping it in the chat box. So thank you so much for joining us and take care.