Animal hoarding is considered to be an under-reported problem, which affects the welfare of both people and animals. Few published studies on animal hoarding are available in the scientific literature, particularly outside North America. The present study was designed to obtain data on animal hoarding in Spain, with a particular focus on animal welfare issues. Data were obtained retrospectively from 24 case reports of animal hoarding involving a total of 1,218 dogs and cats and 27 hoarders. All cases were the result of legal intervention by a Spanish humane society during the period from 2002 to 2011. Hoarders could be characterised as elderly, socially isolated men and women who tended to hoard only one species (dog or cat). Most cases presented a chronic course of more than five years of animal hoarding. The average number of animals per case was 50, with most animals being dogs. In 75% of cases the animals showed indications of poor welfare, including poor body condition, and the presence of wounds, parasitic and infectious illnesses. Amongst the hoarded animals aggression and social fear were the most commonly reported behaviours. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report on animal hoarding in Spain and one of the first in Europe. Further studies are needed to fully elucidate the epidemiology, cross-cultural differences and aetiology of this under-recognised public health and welfare problem. More research might help to find efficient protocols to assist in the resolution and prevention of this kind of problem.

The effect that breed standards and selective breeding practices have on the welfare of pedigree dogs has recently come under scrutiny from both the general public and scientific community. Recent research has suggested that breeding for particular aesthetic traits, such as tightly curled tails, highly domed skulls and short muzzles predisposes dogs with these traits to certain inherited defects, such as spina bifida, syringomyelia and brachycephalic airway obstruction syndrome, respectively. Further to this, there is a very large number of inherited diseases that are not related to breed standards, which are thought to be prevalent, partly as a consequence of inbreeding and restricted breeding pools. Inherited diseases, whether linked to conformation or not, have varying impact on the individuals affected by them, and affect varying proportions of the pedigree dog population. Some diseases affect few breeds but are highly prevalent in predisposed breeds. Other diseases affect many breeds, but have low prevalence within each breed. In this paper, we discuss the use of risk analysis and severity diagrams as means of mapping the overall problem of inherited disorders in pedigree dogs and, more specifically, the welfare impact of specific diseases in particular breeds.

This study explores the use of Free Choice Profiling (FCP) methodology for the qualitative behaviour assessment of emotional expression in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Qualitative behaviour assessment is based upon the integration of many pieces of information that in conventional quantitative approaches are recorded separately or not at all. Observers are asked to focus on an animal's interaction with its surrounding environment, and to describe the animal's expressive demeanor, or ‘body language’. A specific characteristic of FCP methodology is that it allows observers the freedom to devise their own descriptive terms, and then to use these personal terms to quantitatively score observed subjects. Application of FCP to qualitative behaviour assessment in animals was originally tested for pigs, and more recently for dairy cows, horses, and ponies. The goal of this study was to apply FCP to the domestic dog, and to investigate the inter-observer reliability of assessments of emotional expression in 10 individual Beagles by a group of 18 untrained observers. The data was analysed using Generalised Procrustes Analysis (GPA), a multivariate statistical technique associated with FCP. The observers achieved highly-significant agreement in their assessments of the dogs’ expressions, thereby establishing the applicability of this methodology for the first time in the domestic dog.