Current estimates of the UK dog population vary, contain potential sources of bias and are based on expensive, large scale, public surveys. Here, we evaluate the potential of a variety of sources for estimation and monitoring of the companion dog population in the UK and associated demographic information. The sources considered were: a public survey; veterinary practices; pet insurance companies; micro-chip records; Kennel Club registrations; and the Pet Travel Scheme. The public survey and subpopulation estimates from veterinary practices, pet insurance companies and Kennel Club registrations, were combined to generate distinct estimates of the UK owned dog population using a Bayesian approach.

Commercially farmed animals are frequently housed in conditions that impose a number of concurrent environmental stressors. For pigs housed indoors, elevated levels of mechanical noise, atmospheric ammonia and low light intensities are commonplace. This experiment examined the effects on growing pigs of chronic exposure to combinations of commercially relevant levels of these potential stressors. Four-week-old hybrid female pigs (n = 224) were housed under experimentally manipulated conditions of nominally either <5 or 20 ppm atmospheric concentration of ammonia (24 h), a light intensity of 40 lux or 200 lux (12 h) and mechanical noise at either ⩽60 or 80 dB(A) (24 h) for 15 weeks in a fully factorial arrangement (23) of treatments. The response of pigs to these environmental factors was assessed using a suite of physiological, production and behavioural measures. These included indicators of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activation such as salivary cortisol and adrenal morphometry, as well as body weight, food conversion efficiency and general health scores. Play behaviour was recorded as it is thought to be inversely related to stress. Chronic exposure to ammonia produced the strongest effect, shown by lower concentrations of salivary cortisol and larger adrenal cortices in the pigs reared under 20 ppm ammonia, which may have been indicative of a period of HPA activation leading to a downregulation of cortisol production. The pigs in the ammoniated rooms also performed less play behaviour than pigs in non-ammoniated rooms. There was evidence for an interaction between high noise and ammonia on the health scores of pigs and for brighter light to ameliorate the effect of ammonia on salivary cortisol. However, there was no measurable impact of these potential stressors on the productivity of the pigs or any of the other physiological parameters measured. We conclude that there should be little concern in terms of performance about the physical stressors tested here, within current European Union legal limits. However, 20 ppm ammonia may have had an adverse influence on the well-being of growing pigs. In this study, all other aspects of the pigs’ husbandry were optimal; therefore, it is possible that under less favourable conditions, more pronounced effects of ammonia, noise and dim light would be observed.

Resources for tackling animal welfare issues are often limited. Obtaining a consensus of expert opinion on the most pressing issues to address is a valuable approach to try to ensure that resources are wisely spent. In this study, seven independent experts in a range of disciplines (including veterinary medicine, animal behaviour and welfare science and ethics) were consulted on the relative prioritisation of welfare issues impacting companion dogs in Great Britain. Experts first anonymously ranked the priority of 37 welfare issues, pre-defined from a literature review and an earlier published survey. In a subsequent two-day panel workshop, experts refined these issues into 25 composite groups and used specific criteria to agree their relative priorities as a Welfare Problem (WP; incorporating numbers of dogs affected, severity, duration and counter-balancing benefits) and a Strategic Priority (SP; a combination of WP and tractability). Other criteria — anthropogenicity, ethical significance and confidence in the issue-relevant evidence — were also discussed by the panel. Issues that scored highly for both WP and SP were: inappropriate husbandry, lack of owner knowledge, undesirable behaviours, inherited disease, inappropriate socialisation and habituation and conformation-related disorders. Other welfare issues, such as obese and overweight dogs, were judged as being important for welfare (WP) but not strategic priorities (SP), due to the expert-perceived difficulties in their management and resolution. This information can inform decisions on where future resources can most cost-effectively be targeted, to bring about the greatest improvement in companion dog welfare in Great Britain.