Our Mission: A Good Life for All Animals

The Mellorater app aligns with the 2020 Five Domains Model for Animal Welfare Assessment and Monitoring, which was published in the journal Animals, led by Prof. Emeritus David Mellor, and co-authored by Dr Ngaio Beausoleil, Dr Katherine Littlewood, Dr Andrew McLean, Prof. Paul McGreevy, Dr Bidda Jones, and Cristina Wilkins.

Our goal is to develop Mellorater for use across species kept in captive or managed environments, with online collection and storage of data (subject to testing, refinement, and species-specific adaptation). Data collected using the Mellorater are gathered under the approval of the University of New England Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval number HE22-136). These data will reveal how areas for improvement in animal welfare are distributed differently according to the animal species, and the context and purpose for which they are being kept.

Completing the Mellorater will enable you to reflect on aspects of your animal’s life-world that are known to interact with and influence physical function and mental state. Each statement helps you take the animal's perspective. Together, they remind you of the wide range of aspects that matter to animals in terms of their welfare.

At this stage, the app is in development and pilot testing. If you would like to help us develop the app, sign up below.

The term 'welfare' can mean different things to different people. However, there is one thing most people can agree on:

Welfare is a 'felt' state, a particular condition that someone is in at a specific point in time. It is a subjective experience.

Welfare is not something that can be measured directly; rather, it has to be assessed. It’s a bit like the safety of a building: you can’t put a ruler against it and read off a number, but you can look at the structure, materials, and conditions to work out whether it is safe or not. In the same way, we assess welfare by looking at different signs and circumstances (welfare indicators) that tell us how the animal is experiencing their life-world.

Welfare includes the state of the body and the mind because physical and mental states are interconnected.

Every animal has inherited a suite of traits and systems that helped their ancestors survive and reproduce in specific environments. Their bodies detect changes and respond in ways that either restore things back to normal or adjust (adapt) to the changed conditions. Mental states (feelings, affects and emotions) signal whether a change is relevant, and motivate responses that aim to resolve any challenges and seize opportunities. They are crucial to the body's monitoring and regulatory processes.

Every species has specific welfare needs and requires different care and conditions. You can't feed a dog and a horse the same way!

The anatomy, physiology, and behavioural repertoires of every animal are genetically encoded, evolved characteristics, but they also include a capacity to adapt to change. In animal welfare science, it’s important to recognise that every species—and even different types within a species—represents a unique solution to life in a particular environment. The incredible diversity of animals on earth reflects the many ways evolution has shaped them to survive and thrive in different conditions, and to care for them well we need to know as much as possible about the ecology and history of the animals we work with.