Education as a tool for improving canine welfare: Evaluating the effect of an education workshop on attitudes to responsible dog ownership and canine welfare in a sample of Key Stage 2 children in the United Kingdom

One of the core objectives of many animal-welfare organisations is to achieve improvements in animal welfare through school education programmes. However, whilst many charities and organisations develop and deliver these educational activities, impact relating to specific animal welfare attitudes and behaviours remains largely undescribed. This study evaluated the effects of an hour-long dog welfare workshop delivered to children aged 7–11, evaluating 2732 learners in state primary schools across the UK. Two types of workshop were evaluated; “Be Dog Smart” (BDS) and “Responsible Dog Ownership” (RDO). This study assessed short-term impact on attitude outcomes, as a first step in developing a full education monitoring and evaluation framework. Learners within each class were randomly assigned to two groups; one completing an attitude-based questionnaire before (control) and the other after the workshop (treatment). Dog ownership status, age, gender, and social deprivation (measured as access to free school meals) were collected for all participants. Questionnaire scores were compared between treatment and control groups. Mean scores were significantly different (BDS p<0.001; Cohen’s D 0.65; RDO p<0.001; Cohen’s D 0.51) between control (BDS 13.57 ± 3.15; RDO 22.97 ± 4.78) and treatment groups (BDS 15.61 ± 3.10; RDO 25.47 ± 5.06) for both workshops, suggesting workshops effectively convey key messages and improve learner attitudes concerning dogs. Gender, age and social deprivation were found to significantly influence questionnaire responses. These findings contribute to a broader effort to improve canine welfare via childhood education while also demonstrating the feasibility of effective monitoring and evaluation during operational delivery of a schools workshop programme. Ongoing impact assessment is important in ensuring successful development, delivery and refinement of educational programmes to maximise the probabilty of positive changes in participants. Further work is needed to evaluate longer term impact, and ensure that desired influences on human behaviour change, and animal welfare, are achieved.