The Five Domains model of animal welfare provides a comprehensive framework for assessing welfare that goes beyond the Five Freedoms to include positive experiences.
The Five Domains model represents a significant advance in how animal welfare is conceptualized and assessed. The original Five Freedoms focused on absence of negative states — freedom from hunger, pain, distress. The Five Domains adds the explicit goal of providing positive experiences: positive feeding states, comfortable thermal and social environments, engagement with environmental challenges, and positive emotional states including pleasure and curiosity. This shift from welfare as absence of suffering to welfare as presence of positive experiences has implications for standards — it raises the bar beyond preventing harm to actively promoting thriving. It is increasingly used in zoo, farm, and companion animal welfare assessment.