Domestic Animals, Humans, and Leisure: Rights, Welfare, and Wellbeing

Domestic animals are an integral component of human leisure experience and can enhance the physical, social, and mental wellbeing of humans. The interplay of human and animal experiences of justice, wellbeing, rights, and roles within leisure is the central theme of this book. Research explores the position of domesticated animals in human leisure experiences, in a wide array of leisure settings. Chapters question whether domestic animals may have a desire for leisure that is different from human leisure, whether animals have and wish to fulfil needs for meaningful leisure or non-leisure, and whether human leisure needs and desires may coincide or contradict wellbeing interests of animals.

This book provides a venue for the dissemination and exploration of research, which champions the welfare and rights of these animals to have their needs and interests in leisure recognised. It moves the debate about animals in leisure beyond the current limits which have seen research mainly confined to the exotic ’other’ rather than more mundane, everyday domestic animals. This book will be of interest to individuals in the fields of tourism ethics, zoology, animal behaviour, and leisure studies.

Janette Young lectures in health policy, politics and promotion at the University of South Australia. Her research interests hub around the human-animal intersection, salutogenesis or what creates health and wellbeing, social justice and public policy. She has a background as a social worker in ageing, and project and policy work across a diverse range of human interest areas. It was working as a social work student many years ago that she learned that seeking to holistically meet the needs of some people has to encompass caring about the animals these people care about.

Neil Carr is head of the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago and the editor of Annals of Leisure Research. His research focuses on understanding behaviour within tourism and leisure experiences, with a particular emphasis on children and families, sex and animals. He has authored and edited several books, including Dogs in the Leisure Experience (2014) and Domestic Animals and Leisure (2015).