Spotlight on Assistance Dogs-Legislation, Welfare and Research.

Bremhorst A; Mongillo P; Howell T; Marinelli L

doi:10.3390/ani8080129

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Journal article

Spotlight on Assistance Dogs-Legislation, Welfare and Research.

Bremhorst A Companion Animal Behaviour Group, Division of Animal Welfare, VPHI, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. annika@bremhorst.de.
Mongillo P Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, 35020 Legnaro, Italy. paolo.mongillo@unipd.it.
Howell T Anthrozoology Research Group, Department of Psychology and Counselling, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bendigo, VIC 3552, Australia. t.howell@latrobe.edu.au.
Marinelli L Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, 35020 Legnaro, Italy. lieta.marinelli@unipd.it.

2018-07-28

Published in:

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI. - 2018

English Assistance dogs are a very diverse group of working dogs that are trained to assist humans with different types of disabilities in their daily lives. Despite these dogs' value for humankind, research on their welfare status, cognitive and behavioural capacities, selection criteria for the best fitting individuals, effective training and management practices, and genetic issues are so far lacking. This review highlights the need to address these topics and to promote progress in legal issues around assistance dogs. The topic of assistance dogs is approached comprehensively by outlining the current status of knowledge in three different dimensions: (1) the legal dimension, outlining important legal issues in the EU and Australia; (2) the welfare dimension; and (3) the dimension of research, covering assistance dog selection and training. For each of these three dimensions, we discuss potential approaches that can be implemented in the future in order to support assistance dog working performance, to protect the dogs' welfare, and to improve our knowledge about them. Additionally, there remain many legal issues, such as the presence of assistance dogs in public areas, the resolution of which would benefit both the assistance dog and the owner with disability.

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