Modern animal welfare science increasingly focuses on positive experiences — pleasure, play, and engagement — not just preventing suffering. This shift transforms how we assess and improve animal lives.
A fundamental shift has occurred in animal welfare science: the recognition that good welfare is not merely the absence of suffering, but the presence of positive experiences. Animals can experience states analogous to pleasure, curiosity, play-joy, and social satisfaction. Welfare frameworks including the Five Domains Model explicitly require assessment and provision of positive experiences. This shifts the question from "how do we prevent suffering?" to "how do we enable flourishing?" Practical implications include designing environments that allow engagement and choice, providing opportunities for play, social interaction, and natural behaviour, and measuring positive indicators like play frequency, exploratory behaviour, and approach responses to familiar people.