To ensure that farm animal welfare issues are identified and addressed appropriately, there is a need for robust on-farm welfare assessment protocols. This paper describes the development of a comprehensive welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats (Capra hircus) and its testing on 30 commercial dairy goat farms in Norway. The protocol combines animal-based welfare indicators with measures of husbandry provisions to enable the identification of welfare problems and challenges inherent to the production system. The study also includes a first report of group level qualitative behavioural assessments (QBA) of goats. Due to reliability and validity issues related to behavioural assessments of human-animal interactions, indices of stockperson attitudes were incorporated as a complementary assessment of stockmanship. The most prevalent physical conditions observed were ocular discharge, skin lesions, udder asymmetry, calluses on knees and hocks, and overgrown claws. Moreover, fear levels appeared to be of particular concern in some herds. Significant associations were found between qualitative behavioural assessments and measures of health and stockmanship. Floor type was associated with four animal-based welfare outcomes. Reliability and validity of goat welfare indicators need to be further tested, and intervention plans and thresholds need to be determined so that advice can be tailored to the specific problems identified on each farm. We conclude that the protocol can work as a tool to identify welfare issues in dairy goat herds, and that this study may be a valuable contribution to the development of a much-needed welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats.

Stockpeoples’ ability to recognise pain in their livestock, and to respond appropriately, is of utmost importance for animal welfare. Assessment of pain is complex, and attitudes and empathy are thought to play a role in peoples’ responses to the sight of pain. In a separate paper we investigated the dimensionality of Norwegian dairy goat stockpeoples’ goat-oriented attitudes and empathy. This paper investigates how the stockpeople assess and manage pain and disease in goats. The interrelationships between pain perception and provision of veterinary attention were explored, as well as how these two measures are associated with demographics, attitudes and empathy. Pain assessment scores for individual conditions ranged across most of the picture-based pain assessment scale. Dystocia, gangrenous mastitis and the neurological form of caprine arthritis encephalitis were considered most painful. Linear regression showed that one attitude dimension was positively associated with mean pain assessment score (mPAS), while growing up on a goat farm, having farming as main income and having seen a large number of the conditions were negatively associated with mPAS. Cluster analysis on reported frequency of contacting veterinary surgeons for ten conditions revealed two distinct groups of stock-people. Logistic regression showed that females, older stockpeople and stockpeople who grew up in a rural district were significantly more likely to be in the group that more frequently contacted veterinary surgeons. We conclude that training of stockpeople needs to focus on evaluation and management of pain to ensure a high standard of animal welfare.

The quality of human-animal relationships in the livestock industries has been increasingly recognised as an important determinant of animal welfare. Attitudes and empathy are multi-dimensional traits that may be associated with the stockpersons’ behaviour. The aim of this study was to determine the dimensionality of the goat-oriented attitudes and empathy of stockpeople in the Norwegian dairy goat industry. We also explored how empathic and attitudinal dimensions are interrelated, and how the demographic background variables may predict empathy and attitudes. A total of 260 dairy goat farmers participated in the study, by the means of either postal or internet-based questionnaire formats. Multi-item rating scales were developed specifically for the assessment of attitudes and empathy towards goats, and Principal Component Factor Analysis was conducted to determine the dimensionality of the farmers’ goat-oriented attitudes and empathy. Subsequently, linear and ordinal regression analyses were performed to explore the interrelationships. The analyses revealed dimensions of empathy that can be recognised from studies of human-oriented empathy, and attitude dimensions that can be interpreted similarly as dimensions described in studies from other livestock industries. Our results show that different dimensions of attitudes and empathy were associated with different demographic variables, and that each empathy dimension was associated with a different attitude factor.

The introduction of new animals into hunter-gatherer societies produces a variety of cultural responses. This article explores the role of rock art in western Arnhem Land, Australia, in helping to mediate contact-period changes in Indigenous society in the nineteenth century. The authors explore etic and emic perspectives on the ‘re-emergence’ of water buffalo into Aboriginal cultural life. Merging archaeological analysis, rock art and ethnographic accounts, the article demonstrates how such artworks were used as a tool for maintaining order in times of dramatic social change. The results of this research have significant implications for understanding how cultural groups and individuals worldwide used rock art during periods of upheaval.

Pet cemeteries provide a unique opportunity to investigate the development of human-animal relationships, yet few archaeological studies of these cemeteries have been undertaken. This article presents an archaeological survey of gravestones at British pet cemeteries from the Victorian period to the present. These memorials provide evidence for the perceived roles of animals, suggesting the development of an often conflicted relationship between humans and companion animals in British society—from beloved pets to valued family members—and the increasing belief in animal afterlives. The results are discussed in the context of society's current attitude towards animals and the struggle to define our relationships with pets through the mourning of their loss.