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The Herald

James Morgan

A test which helps owners measure their pet's "quality of life" has been developed by a team of Scottish vets.
Dr Lesley Wiseman and her colleagues at Glasgow University Vet School decided to create a standard instrument to help owners make more reliable judgments of their pet's health and happiness.
It allows owners to monitor subtle changes in pets' behaviour and spot trends which may indicate pain and illness.
To create their questionnaire, the team compared the behaviour of dogs being treated for arthritis with dogs with a clean bill of health.
They detailed the tell-tale traits of a dog in pain and a dog in fine fettle, using them as inspiration for their questions.
In one section, "How your dog behaved towards you yesterday", the owner is asked to assess how clingy their dog was on a scale from 0-6 – 0 being "not at all clingy", 6 being "couldn't be more clingy".
In the same section, they score how comfort-seeking, detached and independent the dog was.
On completion, the dog is given a score for each of 13 behaviour domains, such as mobility, appetite and calmness.
The questionnaire, developed using psychometric principles by the vet school's Pain and Welfare Research Group, is the first of its kind devoted to animal welfare.
The group plans to develop the questionnaire for cats and horses and may eventually move on to other animals, such as dairy cows, pigs and sheep.
Professor Jacky Reid, a member of the team, said: "Many of the scales vets have used to score pain in animals are those used in humans, but that's not really appropriate.
"The best way to measure chronic pain in animals is to measure its effects on their quality of life.
"Ours is the first questionnaire to do that which has been designed using psychometric methodology. A tool like this allows owners to see exactly what's going on. They can pass a tremendous amount of information on to the vet."
Some owners have a tendency to judge their dogs as if they were people, missing out on their real feelings and needs.
The prototype has over 100 questions, which the team is now boiling down to a shorter, easier to use version, which, it is hoped, will be ready for owners by next year.
Dr Reid said: "Initially it will be used to identify dogs in chronic pain, but we believe it can be developed to measure quality of life across the board, whether the animal is obese, has cancer, or in a shelter."
The team's work was presented last week in London at a conference held at the Royal Society to hear the latest evidence on how animals interpret the world.
The conference is reported in the forthcoming issue of New Scientist.
A test which helps owners measure their pet's "quality of life" has been developed by a team of Scottish vets.
Dr Lesley Wiseman and her colleagues at Glasgow University Vet School decided to create a standard instrument to help owners make more reliable judgments of their pet's health and happiness.
It allows owners to monitor subtle changes in pets' behaviour and spot trends which may indicate pain and illness.
To create their questionnaire, the team compared the behaviour of dogs being treated for arthritis with dogs with a clean bill of health.
They detailed the tell-tale traits of a dog in pain and a dog in fine fettle, using them as inspiration for their questions.
In one section, "How your dog behaved towards you yesterday", the owner is asked to assess how clingy their dog was on a scale from 0-6 – 0 being "not at all clingy", 6 being "couldn't be more clingy".
In the same section, they score how comfort-seeking, detached and independent the dog was.
On completion, the dog is given a score for each of 13 behaviour domains, such as mobility, appetite and calmness.
The questionnaire, developed using psychometric principles by the vet school's Pain and Welfare Research Group, is the first of its kind devoted to animal welfare.
The group plans to develop the questionnaire for cats and horses and may eventually move on to other animals, such as dairy cows, pigs and sheep.
Professor Jacky Reid, a member of the team, said: "Many of the scales vets have used to score pain in animals are those used in humans, but that's not really appropriate.
"The best way to measure chronic pain in animals is to measure its effects on their quality of life.
"Ours is the first questionnaire to do that which has been designed using psychometric methodology. A tool like this allows owners to see exactly what's going on. They can pass a tremendous amount of information on to the vet."
Some owners have a tendency to judge their dogs as if they were people, missing out on their real feelings and needs.
The prototype has over 100 questions, which the team is now boiling down to a shorter, easier to use version, which, it is hoped, will be ready for owners by next year.
Dr Reid said: "Initially it will be used to identify dogs in chronic pain, but we believe it can be developed to measure quality of life across the board, whether the animal is obese, has cancer, or in a shelter."
The team's work was presented last week in London at a conference held at the Royal Society to hear the latest evidence on how animals interpret the world.
The conference is reported in the forthcoming issue of New Scientist.
A test which helps owners measure their pet's "quality of life" has been developed by a team of Scottish vets.
Dr Lesley Wiseman and her colleagues at Glasgow University Vet School decided to create a standard instrument to help owners make more reliable judgments of their pet's health and happiness.
It allows owners to monitor subtle changes in pets' behaviour and spot trends which may indicate pain and illness.
To create their questionnaire, the team compared the behaviour of dogs being treated for arthritis with dogs with a clean bill of health.
They detailed the tell-tale traits of a dog in pain and a dog in fine fettle, using them as inspiration for their questions.
In one section, "How your dog behaved towards you yesterday", the owner is asked to assess how clingy their dog was on a scale from 0-6 – 0 being "not at all clingy", 6 being "couldn't be more clingy".
In the same section, they score how comfort-seeking, detached and independent the dog was.
On completion, the dog is given a score for each of 13 behaviour domains, such as mobility, appetite and calmness.
The questionnaire, developed using psychometric principles by the vet school's Pain and Welfare Research Group, is the first of its kind devoted to animal welfare.
The group plans to develop the questionnaire for cats and horses and may eventually move on to other animals, such as dairy cows, pigs and sheep.
Professor Jacky Reid, a member of the team, said: "Many of the scales vets have used to score pain in animals are those used in humans, but that's not really appropriate.
"The best way to measure chronic pain in animals is to measure its effects on their quality of life.
"Ours is the first questionnaire to do that which has been designed using psychometric methodology. A tool like this allows owners to see exactly what's going on. They can pass a tremendous amount of information on to the vet."
Some owners have a tendency to judge their dogs as if they were people, missing out on their real feelings and needs.
The prototype has over 100 questions, which the team is now boiling down to a shorter, easier to use version, which, it is hoped, will be ready for owners by next year.
Dr Reid said: "Initially it will be used to identify dogs in chronic pain, but we believe it can be developed to measure quality of life across the board, whether the animal is obese, has cancer, or in a shelter."
The team's work was presented last week in London at a conference held at the Royal Society to hear the latest evidence on how animals interpret the world.
The conference is reported in the forthcoming issue of New Scientist.
A test which helps owners measure their pet's "quality of life" has been developed by a team of Scottish vets.
Dr Lesley Wiseman and her colleagues at Glasgow University Vet School decided to create a standard instrument to help owners make more reliable judgments of their pet's health and happiness.
It allows owners to monitor subtle changes in pets' behaviour and spot trends which may indicate pain and illness.
To create their questionnaire, the team compared the behaviour of dogs being treated for arthritis with dogs with a clean bill of health.
They detailed the tell-tale traits of a dog in pain and a dog in fine fettle, using them as inspiration for their questions.
In one section, "How your dog behaved towards you yesterday", the owner is asked to assess how clingy their dog was on a scale from 0-6 – 0 being "not at all clingy", 6 being "couldn't be more clingy".
In the same section, they score how comfort-seeking, detached and independent the dog was.
On completion, the dog is given a score for each of 13 behaviour domains, such as mobility, appetite and calmness.
The questionnaire, developed using psychometric principles by the vet school's Pain and Welfare Research Group, is the first of its kind devoted to animal welfare.
The group plans to develop the questionnaire for cats and horses and may eventually move on to other animals, such as dairy cows, pigs and sheep.
Professor Jacky Reid, a member of the team, said: "Many of the scales vets have used to score pain in animals are those used in humans, but that's not really appropriate.
"The best way to measure chronic pain in animals is to measure its effects on their quality of life.
"Ours is the first questionnaire to do that which has been designed using psychometric methodology. A tool like this allows owners to see exactly what's going on. They can pass a tremendous amount of information on to the vet."
Some owners have a tendency to judge their dogs as if they were people, missing out on their real feelings and needs.
The prototype has over 100 questions, which the team is now boiling down to a shorter, easier to use version, which, it is hoped, will be ready for owners by next year.
Dr Reid said: "Initially it will be used to identify dogs in chronic pain, but we believe it can be developed to measure quality of life across the board, whether the animal is obese, has cancer, or in a shelter."
The team's work was presented last week in London at a conference held at the Royal Society to hear the latest evidence on how animals interpret the world.
The conference is reported in the forthcoming issue of New Scientist.