Exotic small animals that are commonly kept as pets include aquarium fish, cage and aviary birds, rodents, rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), reptiles and amphibians. These different kinds of animals, even species within the same class, may differ markedly from each other regarding physiology and requirements. Although these species are common in both Swedish households and in pet trade, many animal keepers have a lack of knowledge about the origin and requirements of their pets. This is a cause of several health problems seen in animals which are held in captivity. In Sweden, the county administrative boards perform all animal welfare controls.

In Sweden everyone has the possibility to report deficiencies in animal welfare they encounter. They report this to the county administration in their county and such a report is called a complaint case. Complaint cases are normally handled with animal welfare inspections, carried out by animal welfare inspectors from the county administration in the county where the animal keeper with reported deficiencies lives. The county administrations in Sweden receive a lot of complaint cases that differ in grade of how severe the deficiency is. The complaint cases are given priority by how severe the deficiency seems to be.

Psittacines and reptiles are exotic animals that are difficult to care for and it requires extra knowledge to make a correct assessment of their wellbeing. An animal welfare inspector, with an education in general animal welfare, may not have a deep enough knowledge of exotic animals to do a proper assessment of the animal?s general condition and its environment. In this paper it was therefore examined if animal welfare inspectors have enough knowledge to do a satisfying inspection of establishments working with selling of exotic animals. A literature study was used to examine difficulties with each species.

According to the basic values of the Swedish Trotting Association the horse and its welfare should always be held in highest consideration. One part of the animal welfare work in the organization is to ensure good horse management practices by controlling all active trainers through the local licensing committees situated at the Swedish racetracks. The Swedish Board of Agriculture stated that high quality animal welfare assurance programs used by the industry organizations can be used in the risk assessment of the official animal welfare control to make the official control work more effective and the ambition of the Swedish Trotting Association is to establish an animal welfare assurance program which may be approved by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. Racehorses are exposed to welfare hazards both in their management as well as during training and racing and factors like handling, training, feedstuff, stable environment, medication and the possibility to express natural behavior all affect the welfare of the horses. The aim of the project is to investigate and evaluate the animal welfare work performed by the licensing committees and to give advice on how to improve the industry?s animal welfare control.

Hypothermia during anaesthesia is a well-known phenomenon that may cause several side-effects such as greater risk of postoperative wound infection and increased risk of heart complications. The most efficient way to avoid this is to prevent hypothermia from occurring. The aim of this paper was to compile the research on the most efficient way to prevent hypothermia during anaesthesia for cats and dogs, and to compare these results to how Swedish animal hospitals prevent hypothermia today. To investigate this, a survey was sent out to several animal hospitals around Sweden to see what methods they used to prevent hypothermia in their clinics. It is difficult if not impossible to prevent the body temperature from falling slightly when anaesthesia is induced because of the drug interactions in the body that follow from the drugs given. A 1-1,5°C decrease in body temperature is to be expected and is difficult to avoid.

Syftet med studien var att studera hur sällskapsdjur kan påverka demenssjukas beteendeproblem och vara ett komplement till medicinsk behandling med lugnande läkemedel hos patienter med demens.Studien genomfördes som en systematisklitteraturstudie. Metoden författarna använde sig av var att de valde ut 9 stycken vetenskapliga artiklar från år 1999-2009 som hittats i olika databaser och referenslistor. Artiklarna analyserades genom att texten delades upp i de olika kategorierna lugnade effekt/oro, aggression, kontakt/beröring och läkemedelsanvändande. Resultatet visade att beteendeproblemen som aggression och oro, i flera av studierna blev bättre i sällskapsdjurs närvaro, men bara under den tiden som deltagarna fick animal assisted therapy (AAT). När deltagarna blev utan AAT försämrades deras beteendeproblem igen.

Syftet med denna deskriptiva litteraturstudie var att beskriva vilken inverkan sällskapsdjur har på äldre personers hälsa och välbefinnande. Totalt 18 vetenskapliga artiklar inkluderades dessa återfanns i databaserna Cinahl, Science Direct och Academic Search Elite samt via andra artiklars referenslistor. Studierna som gjorts om djurens inverkan på äldre personer som bor i det egna hemmet genomfördes med enkäter och intervjuer. Resultatet visade att djurägarna var mindre missnöjda med sin sociala och emotionella situation än de som inte ägde djur. Hos hemmaboende personer med Alzheimers sjukdom visade det sig att interaktioner med sällskapsdjur minskade humör- och psykomotoriska störningar såsom aggression, hyperaktivitet, hallucinationer och känslor av oro.

Bakgrund: Under senare år har allt fler kliniska träningscentra för färdighetsträningetablerats för att möjliggöra en trygg och säker lärandemiljö med simuleringsmöjligheter förstuderande och personal. Klinisk färdighetsträning är en viktig del i sjuksköterskeutbildningenvid Högskolan Dalarna (HDa) där lärandemiljön på Kompetenscentrum (KC) kan bidra till enförbättring av lärandemiljön i den kliniska färdighetsutbildningen.Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka sjuksköterskestudenters upplevelser viaskattning av lärandemiljön för klinisk färdighetsutbildning före och efter inrättandet avKompetenscentrum.Metod: Studien genomfördes som en enkätundersökning med kvasiexperimentell design.Enkätens baserades på Saarikoski och Leino-Kilpis mätinstrument CLES där frågeställningarom lärandemiljön modifierades med hjälp av Delphimetoden utifrån de tre olikadimensionerna: utbildningsmiljö, relation och lärarens roll. Mätningen före inrättandetgenomfördes under hösten 2010 och mätningen efter inrättandet genomfördes hösten 2011.Totalt ingick 266 sjuksköterskestudenter i studien varav 198 (74 %) besvarade enkäten.Resultat: Sjuksköterskestudenter skattade upplevelsen av lärandemiljön mer positiv efterinrättandet av Kompetenscentrum där resultatet visar en signifikant högre skattning i 8 de avde 16 frågorna. Sjuksköterskestudenterna skattade att de upplever att utbildningsmiljön är merverklighetstrogen, de är mer nöjda med färdighetsträningen samt att den inspirerar dem till attarbeta som sjuksköterska. Att relationen mellan dem och läraren bygger på respekt och att detär en mer positiv atmosfären under färdighetsträningen.

Electrical stunning is the method that has been used in Sweden to stun broilers prior to slaughter. However, for reasons of animal welfare and meat quality, research has been made in the EU to develop new stunning methods. Gas stunning is now regarded as the best alternative. In this study literature has been reviewed with focus on different gas stunning systems and observations have been made at two different slaughterhouses regarding animal welfare before, during and directly after stunning. At one slaughter plant carbondioxide was used in a two-stage system where the birds were standing on a conveyer belt during the stunning procedure.

Bakgrund: Ett grundläggande emotionellt behov hos människan är fysisk beröring, som vid vissa sjukdomstillstånd kan vara svåra att tillfredsställa inom vården. Effekten av beröringen gör att människan blir mer avslappnad, samma effekt kan en person få från fysisk beröring av sällskapsdjur. Djurassisterad terapi kan användas som en kompletteringsbehandling inom sjukvården.Syfte: Att beskriva vilka djurarter som används i djurassisterad terapi och på vilket sätt de kan användas i vården för rehabilitering och habilitering av patienter. Syftet var vidare att beskriva om det har effekt på hälsan och i så fall vilken effekt det har.Metod: Litteraturstudie med 11 utvalda artiklar från databaserna CINAHL, PubMed och Google scholar. Artiklarnas kvalitet granskades, resultaten analyserades och presenteras efter studiens frågeställningar.Huvudresultat: Flertalet djurarter kan användas för djurassisterad terapi vid både psykisk och fysisk ohälsa.

As a pet owner you are likely to someday face the decision to euthanize your pet and as a veterinarian or veterinary technician you are the one to perform this euthanasia. The reason for euthanasia may be depending on the animal, for instance illness, age and behavioral problems or depending on the needs of the owner or the society, so called convenience euthanasia. Many different euthanasia methods can be used when putting an animal to sleep. The method preferred in animal hospitals is pharmacological euthanasia either by inhalation of anesthetics or by injection of a euthanasia agent. If the pet owner wishes to be present during the procedure it is important to prepare him for what will happen. Many animals are sedated before the euthanasia in order to reduce anxiety and to ensure a softer transition between life and death. The euthanasia agent can then be administrated for instance intravenously or intraperitonealy.

This essay constitutes an attempt to expose, with reference to contemporary animal research, the limits of Martin Heidegger?s concept of the being of animality in Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik (1929/30) and to propose some possible ways to think, within the philosophical style of this particular work, the being of those animals that most distinctly transcends Heidegger?s concept. The essay seeks to address the following question: Do the results of contemporary animal research expose ways of being within animality that withdrawal from Heidegger?s concept of the being of animality in general, and if so, how should we think these new ways of animal being? The motivation to ask this question, I argue, are immanent to Heidegger?s thinking in at least three ways: 1) Because of his standpoint that philosophy cannot, in any meaningful way, create an ontological concept of animality without an orientation towards the results of the positive sciences; 2) Because of the unfinished and tentative character of Heidegger?s analysis, a character that is such that it should be seen, according to Heidegger himself, as an essential point of departure for further thinking; 3) Because of Heidegger?s view that the being of the animal are such that it involves the withdrawal of this very being from any originary access, a withdrawal that necessitates an infinite return to the question concerning the being of the animal. The essay wants to be a continuation of lines that are present in Heidegger?s open-ended thought on this theme rather than to be an external critique that approach the text, which is most often the case, as a closed point of view which we are forced to affirm or reject.

Animal art is one of the more mystical aspects of Scandinavian Iron Age culture. It has foremost been regarded in the light of art and style history. Interpretation has also ? mainly from the 1990s and onwards ? been made through iconographic analysis. But the problem here is that iconography requires textual analogy, something that the Scandinavian Iron Age lacks.The purpose of this paper is to lift some of the ?mystical fog? that engulfs the scandinavian animal art, by developing a method for interpretation of pre-historic images that evades the flaws in the iconographic method.

Extensively kept animals for meat production have the right to live in a good environment. Cattle (Bos Taurus) as social animals live in small herds in the wild. When holding animals extensively new problems have arisen regarding human ? animal interactions. One welfare problem is to be able to come close enough to the animals to investigate their health condition.

Animal welfare is of increasing concern in present society. In commercial pig farming, animal welfare problems are common. One of the causes for these problems is the barren environment in which pigs are housed, which can cause oral manipulation of pen mates. Providing straw might be one solution to this problem. Another solution could be reached through genetic selection.