How assessing positive welfare states in companion animals provides a richer picture of their wellbeing than absence of disease alone.
Positive welfare assessment for companion animals moves beyond the question of whether animals are suffering to whether they are genuinely thriving. Dogs and cats in positive welfare states show higher behavioral diversity, more play, more confident exploration, and better social engagement with humans and conspecifics. These states are not merely the absence of negative experiences but the presence of positive ones: pleasure, engagement, comfort, and connection. Assessment tools that incorporate positive indicators enable owners and veterinarians to identify when management improvements would benefit an animal even in the absence of obvious suffering. The aspiration of maximizing positive welfare rather than merely preventing negative states represents the highest ambition for companion animal care.