"It's Not Good for the Animals, but I Think It Should Be Done"-Using Focus Group Interviews to Explore Adolescent Views on Animal Experimentation.

The present study focused on an in-depth analysis of adolescents' (aged 15-16) attitudes towards animal experimentation. Focus group interviews were conducted to gain a deeper understanding regarding the ethical considerations of this age group. The data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. All participants considered their own knowledge about the whole topic as low. Our results show that adolescents in the study had considerably more positive attitudes toward animal experimentation than the literature had suggested. All groups identified positive aspects of animal experimentation and accepted at least one scenario of animal experimentation. Most of the groups rated half of the examples presented as acceptable. The participants tended to make specific assessments in view of a concrete scenario and seemed to form their positions anew. In their discussion, students focused mainly on the following criteria: the relevance of research, the extent of animal suffering, and the existence of alternatives. Generally, we hypothesize that the focus group discussions took place largely within the framework of anthropocentric ethics.

Quality of Life within Horse Welfare Assessment Tools: Informing Decisions for Chronically Ill and Geriatric Horses.

Equine Quality of Life (QoL) is an important concern in decision making in veterinary medicine and is especially relevant for chronically ill or geriatric horses towards the end of their lives. To our knowledge, there is no currently available QoL assessment tool for chronically ill or geriatric horses that assesses equine QoL defined as the horse's evaluation of their life. However, tools exist to assess equine welfare in different contexts. Hence, the aims of this study were to analyse how equine welfare, QoL, well-being and happiness assessment tools label, define and operationalise the concepts and to discuss the tools' suitability to assess equine QoL in the context of end-of-life decisions for chronically ill or geriatric horses. Fourteen articles were found through a systematic literature search, describing ten equine welfare assessment tools and one approach to integrating equine QoL in veterinary practice that suggests QoL assessment parameters. We discuss that some welfare assessment tools have the potential to support the development of a QoL assessment tool informing decisions towards the end of horses' lives if they are adjusted to focus on the horses' experiences, to provide an integration into an overall QoL grade and are tailored to chronically ill or geriatric horses.

Wanna See My Dog Pic? A Comparative Observational Study of the Presentation of Animals on Online Dating Profiles in Vienna and Tokyo.

Online dating applications offer new ways for people to search for social contacts. While previous studies have indicated that the inclusion of animals in profiles can increase users' dating success rates, the question of how many users display animals, and what kinds of animals are shown on dating profiles, has not yet been empirically investigated. Using a structured observational study of profiles in Vienna and Tokyo on a popular online dating app (n = 2400), we therefore looked at how many profiles show animals and what kinds of animals are shown. We found that 15.5% of the investigated profiles had at least one photo showing an animal. In both cities, dogs were the most frequently shown animal. Taking the cities together, they appeared in 46.4% of the animal pictures, as compared with cats at 25.7%. Other animals such as exotic animals (9.9%), farm animals (6.4%) or horses (4.6%) played a minor role. Users were significantly more likely to show cats in Tokyo (35.8%) than they were in Vienna (18.0%). We found that users in Vienna; women; and older adults were more likely to present animals on their profiles than were users in Tokyo; men; and younger users. Sexual orientation showed no significant differences in the analyses.

Am I actually a veterinarian or an economist? Understanding the moral challenges for farm veterinarians in Germany on the basis of a qualitative online survey.

This qualitative online survey (n = 123) investigated what farm veterinarians in Germany perceive as morally challenging situations. Vital moral challenges can be described as conflicts between different actors who make demands on the veterinarians, like (a) animals, (b) farmers, (c) politics, (d) society, (e) veterinary offices (f) colleagues, supervisors, employees and competitors and (g) the veterinarian himself/herself. Or they can be described as the conflict between different roles of veterinarians who describe themselves as (a) advocates for the animals, (b) entrepreneurs, (c) social workers, (d) part of agriculture, (e) colleagues, supervisors, employees and competitors and (f) private persons. It can be deduced that at least some study participants find the described moral challenges a cause for moral distress. The key moral challenge for farm veterinarians, from their own viewpoint, are not so much open ethical questions, ethical dilemmas or "duty vs. inclination" conflicts, but rather situations in which their personal moral convictions are conflicting with external obstacles. Accordingly, a feeling of powerlessness appears in their answers. The extremely limited financial scope of animal owners could be identified as the key external obstacle.