Exploring Animal Welfare and Wellbeing of Working Sled Dogs through Autoethnography

Abstract

In recent years, animal-based tourism has developed to be the number one tourism activity in Finnish Lapland, especially dog sledding. With this development, the number of reported incidents around animal wellbeing within the industry increased, while talks about animal welfare and wellbeing and the need for changes emerged. As a result, the interest of both scholars as well as the public shifted towards concern for animals working in the tourism industry.

Previous studies about animal welfare and wellbeing are, for example, focusing on exploring animal welfare and good cases. However, all previous research has in common that the researcher comes from outside the industry. Therefore, my research explores the animal wellbeing of huskies at work from an insider perspective. The study aims to examine how different practices among kennels are constructed and impact the wellbeing of the dogs, as well as taking human-animal relations and their impacts into account.

Mellor's Five Domains are used as the main theoretical concept and provide insight into different factors influencing welfare and wellbeing. This is then connected to human-animal relations to examine how wellbeing and welfare are constructed.

To do so, autoethnography is used, and log entries are created about observations and experiences while working in different kennels. This method provides the opportunity to explore a multidimensional setting while at the same time challenges the researcher to include animals in the picture. It is expected that the outcome will show how practices, as well as human-animal interactions, influence the wellbeing and welfare of working sled dogs. In addition, it will provide a new insight into the field due to the insider role of the author.