Working Animals: Welfare, Ethics and Human-Animals Relationship
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Behaviour and Emotion".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 46901
Special Issue Editor
Interests: behavior and welfare of working animals; computer video analysis; animal physiology in sport exercise; dog olfaction science; human–working animal relationship; animal-assisted intervention issues; veterinary medicine on working animals
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
From the earliest days of human history, animals have been employed as workers, helping the survival of the human species in a myriad of ways. Nowadays, around the world, there are still millions of animals working in collaboration with their handlers. The huge diversity of work performed by animals ranges from military; law enforcement and war animals; transport animals in agriculture; search and rescue animals; detection dogs (drugs, explosive, wildlife, etc.,); herding, guarding, and hunting animals; to those involved in animal-assisted therapy or assistance/service animals (such as guide dogs for the blinds).
While the contributions and collaborations of these animals have brought enormous benefits to people's lives, in some circumstance, the role of "working animal" exposes the animal to potential great risks for their welfare. Given the enormous social role played by these animals, it would be desirable to open a scientific debate on the potential benefits and risks associated with working animals, and on the ethical issues related to it. This is important both for animals that work in close contact with humans (such as rescue dogs, and animals involved in assistance/service), because of their deep relationship with their handlers, and for those that are mainly exploited as an animal resource (for example animals from transport and hunting dogs), to which the performative request is not always reciprocated by adequate care and management.
Innovative papers from different research areas, such as the behavior and welfare of working animals, computer video analysis, sport exercise animal physiology, dog olfaction science, human–working animal relationship, animal-assisted intervention issues, and veterinary medicine, are invited to contribute to this Special Issue, which aims to bring together the latest advances in the welfare and ethics issues of working with animals. Interdisciplinary studies will be considered, especially those regarding (but not limited to) the following:
- Search and rescue dogs;
- Detection dogs;
- Herding and hunting dogs.
- Animals involved in assistance/service to humans;
- Human–working animal relationship;
- Transport animals;
- Ethical issues related to working animals.
Asssoc. Prof. Silvana Diverio
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- search and rescue dogs
- detection dogs
- herding and hunting dogs
- animals involved in assistance/service to humans
- human–working animal relationship
- transport animals
- ethical issues related to working animals