The gut microbiome significantly influences companion animal health, behaviour, and welfare. Understanding and optimising microbiome health is an emerging area in veterinary welfare science.
Companion animal gut health represents an emerging welfare frontier. The gut-brain axis means that microbiome disruption can affect not only physical health but behaviour, mood, and stress responses. Antibiotic treatment, while often medically necessary, causes significant microbiome disruption that may contribute to post-antibiotic digestive upset and behavioural changes. Diet quality, including appropriate fibre and diverse ingredients, supports microbiome diversity. Probiotic use during and after antibiotic courses may reduce disruption severity. Stress itself negatively affects microbiome composition, creating bidirectional links between environmental stress and gut welfare. Research into the microbiome-behaviour connection in companion animals is an active and welfare-relevant field.