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

The app collects anonymous data on animals’ life-worlds but also on how they are reported by the guardians of different species and the same species in different contexts. 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 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 think about the animal's perspective, and together, they remind you of the wide range of aspects that matter to animals in terms of their welfare.

Interestingly enough, animal welfare scientists have not settled on a definition! The term 'welfare' can mean different things to different people and it might change depending on the context. However, there is one thing most people can agree on:

Welfare is a state or a particular condition that someone is in at a specific point in time.

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

Every organism contains many different systems, all of them working with, interacting and influencing each other. Every cell, tissue, organ and system is working to maintain good function, or restore balanced function.

Every species has specific welfare needs and requires different care and conditions. You can't feed a dog and a horse the same way! Every species of animal has evolved specific, characteristic features because they helped them survive and thrive in a particular environmental niche.

In animal welfare science these genetically encoded, evolved characteristics are collectively called their telos! You can also think of it as their natural history, or their 'nature'.