How to measure happiness in your pets using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?

Hi everyone, I am En Ji Liew, currently a fifth year veterinary student from Universiti Putra Malaysia. To be a veterinarian has been my childhood dream since I was eleven and I'm now still working hard towards achieving this goal.
Do stay tuned for more animal-related and non-animal related topics that I will be sharing in the future!

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Today I would like to share with you my experience in Taiwan (30th and 31st of January 2018) on my last semester break, in which I have had an eye-opening experience to deliver a TED-talk inspired speech in Chinese on stage (this was my first Chinese public speaking!) and get to know many veterinary field professionals from all over the world!

Youtube Link

*Thank you Dr DJ Chen for your awesome introduction of me to the audience! *

This event was organized by Asia Animal Welfare Association (亞洲動物福利協會) and Asia People & Pet Excellent Connection (APPEC), co-organized by National Animal Enterprise Group (台灣全國動物醫院連鎖體系) .

I’m very honored to be invited by the Dr DJ Chen, the chairman of AAWA cum CEO of National Animal Enterprise Group as one of the six student speakers of this annual event!

With the main theme of this event, “To build the bond between humans and pets in Asia”, I had been figuring out what is the most important element between the connection of pet owners and pets while preparing the script of the speech. My final answer to this is “happiness". Nonetheless, how do we judge or measure “happiness” in our pets? Animals don’t speak nor write. This is when we as humans, as pet owners, as veterinarians play our roles in finding the “happiness” in our pets.

What defines “happiness” in our pets? What makes a pet or animal happy? Based on an influential paper published by an American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943, it was proposed that a healthy individual has a certain number of needs, which was categorized into five levels that made up a pyramid of “Maslow Hierarchy of Needs”. It was believed that once individual achieved basic needs as described in the pyramid, he or she might achieve a certain level of satisfaction in which bringing happiness in within. The five levels of Maslow Hierarchy of needs are physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem and self-actualization.

What about applying the principles of “Maslow Hierarchy of Needs” into the daily life of a pet? Just like us, pets do have physiological, psychological needs and we might observe the potential of self-achievement in them too!

The first four levels of the pyramid are defined as the “deficiency needs”. In other words, with the fulfillment of these needs itself does not feel extremely excited or sense the achievement directly, nonetheless, failure to achieve these needs may result in anxiety. These primitive, basic needs in pets namely physiological, safety, love and esteem are the bricks of foundation to happiness.

Physiological needs of a pet can only be achieved with responsible ownership of animal, which consists of the annual medical check by veterinarians, disease prevention such as vaccination, feeding and nutrition of the pets s well as a regular life routine. This level of needs depicts a close relationship between pets, pet owners and veterinary related profession.

A safety home is a life sanctuary for a pet. With a safe and secure environment, the pet’s basic welfare is assured. As pet owners, we have the responsibility to ensure our pets are feeling secured and protected. It is one of the most crucial factors of ensuring happiness in a pet’s life.

Based on a poll survey carried out by Crufts UK on 1500 dog owners, it was found that half of the owners feel that their pets could sense and understand their owners’ current mood and feeling; half of them considered their pets as one of the major factors in making life decisions like purchasing property or what job they had; the average amount of time spent with their pets is 13 hours per week, occupying almost 10 % of the time. This exhibits the relationship in between pets and owners, whereby belongingness and love are established when we accompany and create memories together.

In my point of view, a pet should have its own personal space, in which they deserve to rest their mind and soul. With an optimum period of allowing them to be themselves, pets are more used to the period of when their owners were not with them but they have the mutual understanding and trust with their owners that it was going to be temporary and their owners would get back to them eventually. This indirectly improves the ability of a pet to stay at home at its own while their owners are out for work and reduce the incidence of separation anxiety in their pets.

With the fulfillment of the previous “deficiency needs” mentioned previously, the fifth level of needs is defined as a “growth need”, this is when a pet is able to self-actualize to reach its potential of achieving and playing its role to the fullest as a pet dog or even a working dog. Looking at this level, a pet that achieved this level of need is aware of its responsibilities, just like a guard dog that able to differentiate play and work. Nevertheless, this does not mean achieving the perfection level in training dogs to be like a genius dog that can perform complex task or work. Simple trick training or completion of small chores at home may improve their level of self-actualization too.

After a lengthy theoretical lecture on the application of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in the relationship between humans and pets, it is the time to apply these ideologies in an interesting movie of a dog! In the second part of the speech, we will be looking at the movie “A Dog’s Purpose” and analyzing the levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in a relaxing story-telling manner.

Source

The movie summarizes a lovely Golden Retriever dog named Bailey, her adventurous reincarnation as multiple canines in decades and discovery of her own existence as a dog. From the different roles of dog in her lives, we are able to analyze the quality of live of the dogs based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and found out that there is significant association in between the types of owner and quality of life (happiness) in a dog!

The four reincarnations of the main dog character in the movie, A Dog's Purpose.

As a conclusion of this sharing, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs serves as a great checklist for the pet owners to tackle the needs of their pet to achieve a harmonious bonding in between pets and owners. Upon fulfillment of all the fundamental needs indicating that owners may provide more interesting and challenging trick training or task as enrichment for their pets based on the pets’ ability!

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the organisers and staffs of APPEC forum, veterinarians of National Animal Hospital Taiwan, Deputy Dean Prof Dr Siti Suri Arshad and lecturers from Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Universiti Putra Malaysia, friends and family who have been giving me tremendous support along the way. Not to forget my most supportive Final Year Project supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Ooi for giving me "green light" and encouragement to attend this forum in Taiwan during my FYP preparation period!

Thanks @kimzwarch for attending this forum with me in Taiwan and only you knew how excited and anxious was I while receiving the invitation to be a speaker!

Thank you for your time. Have a nice day! :)