There is nothing more central to animal welfare science than asking the animal. But although we interact with animals every day at work and at home, we often see them as passive subjects of our plans rather than feeling individuals who are open to being asked. I believe we should change this perspective, and here’s why:
Why ask the animal?
The scientific method is based on observation and interpretation, and generally when we are observing something in the natural world, we try to minimise our influence on it as much as possible. When it comes to the animals with whom we work, however, this is simply not possible. We would be naïve to think that our presence doesn’t exert a major influence on the animal in front of us. But rather than being constrained by this interaction, we can look at it in a different way.
Because animals are sentient, responsive beings, we have a great opportunity to interact with our subjects of inquiry. We have an opportunity to ask animals and listen for their responses. Their answers can help us understand so much more about their welfare than if we had just observed them through a one-way mirror.
So how do we ask the animal, in a practical sense?
Understanding “yes,” “no,” and “stop”
First, we need to understand as many of the possible behavioural responses from the animal as possible. In other words, we need to know a bit about the behaviour that is typical of the species. Behaviour is what an animal uses to respond to their environment and to control outcomes of interest. So, if you’re working with giraffes, what does it look like when a giraffe responds positively and wants more of something (assent) or responds negatively and wants to avoid something (dissent)?
Admittedly, looking at species-typical behaviours is an ethological approach, which doesn’t account for the wide bell curve of individual variation within each species, but we must start somewhere. We can’t speak for every giraffe–unless of course we ask them. 
You could spend decades studying the behaviour of any given species (and I encourage you to do so!). But at a minimum, it’s helpful to understand the behaviours that members of the species typically display when they want something (you can think of this as a “yes”) and how they look when they don’t want something (a “no”). If it’s a social species, you can gather a lot of these “yes” and “no” behaviours just by watching two individuals interact. They are already telling each other “yes” and “no” all the time.
If you happen to know the individual animal well, you may have already worked out what “yes” and “no” look like. For my basset hound, Leo, it’s an intense gaze at me with ears perked up if he wants something (“Sourdough bread? Yes, please!”) and a gaze straight ahead with a snout down and dropped ears if he doesn’t want something (“An ear cleaning? I’ll pass.”) If you haven’t worked much with the individual or species before, then it may be helpful to ask others who know the animal well, as well as read scientific publications and resources like the AZA’s Animal Care Manuals for the species.
At a basic level, almost all animals who are capable of movement will retreat when they don’t like something and approach when they want something (generally food or the attention of their conspecifics). Even sea anemones will open to feed and close in response to aversive stimuli. If you can figure out what this “opening up” and “shutting down” looks like for the animal you’re working with, then you’ve got a head start.
There is a caveat to the approach/withdraw or opening/closing rule of thumb, and it’s an important caveat. We must always be aware that certain animals under certain circumstances are more prone to the freeze, stopping all visible behaviour, than they are to respond actively. If they are experiencing fear of an aversive stimulus, and that aversive stimulus is uncertain enough to them, they might freeze rather than physically withdraw themselves. It is thought that the freeze response is mediated by the parts of the brain involved in predator detection at a distance. If a predator is far away, it makes more sense for a prey animal to hide rather than flee, which might call the attention of the predator. We need to keep an eye out for the freeze behaviour and take it seriously when it happens, even though it may look like a lack of behaviour. It signifies a momentary loss of control at the very least, or worse, a case of learned helplessness on the part of the animal.*
Because we know that freezing is a fear response, the best thing we can do in this situation is stop whatever may be causing the fear. Having removed the fear-inducing stimulus, we need to let the animal calm down and the animal’s emotions to return to baseline before reengaging. A fearful animal is not in the best state to interact with us, so unless we are highly trained in working with animals who are experiencing fear (e.g., Happy Paws – you have a gift!), we are best to listen to the animal and STOP.
Going in dumb
Now that we know what “yes,” “no,” and “stop” look like, it’s time to go enter a dialogue with the animal. It’s best that we enter this dialogue with a blank slate, that is, without our own expectations of how the animal should respond. Even if you have known the animal for years, it is best to go in without any expectations. Expectations can heavily bias our observations of the animal’s response if we’re already thinking about what the animal will do. Try to clear your mind of your own goals, past experiences, knowledge, and desires. Or as I sometimes tell people, “Be dumb!”
I’ll assume you are entering this dialogue with an animal under your direct care. (You should not be training animals in the wild unless you’re a very experienced trainer with a good grasp of animal ethics a la Ken Ramirez, who has trained wild animals for conservation). The most basic question you can ask the animal under your direct care is to make a simple choice. For example, do you want this food (in one hand) or a different food (in the other hand). Or if you want to know whether you yourself are reinforcing to the animal, you may offer the option of food over there in the bowl or food from your hand. Both options that you offer should be considered positive for the animal. The animal, of course, may in time tell you otherwise.
Remember, the animal is observing you as much, if not more than, you are observing him. So make sure you’re not subtly reinforcing or punishing the choice of one option over the other. This is difficult and requires a lot of self-examination, so sometimes video recording and rewatching the interaction is helpful to see whether you have subtly influenced the animal. Rather that influencing the animal’s choice, we are merely here to ask and observe.
Observing and responding
Okay, so we understand more or less what “yes,” “no,” and “stop” could look like, we’ve cleared our minds of all expectations, and we’ve asked the animal something. Now what? We wait for the animal to respond. And based on that response, we adjust our next question…
Say, for example, I’m interested in how my basset hound is feeling today. So I decide that today I’m going to ask him whether he wants to go for a walk. Normally, I would just assume (expectations!) that he wants to go on the walk. And many days, whether he likes it or not, we’re walking, because I know the walk is good for him in the long run (more about this in the last section of the article). But today, I’ve got my animal welfare scientist hat on, and I genuinely want to know what he wants.
I’m going to go over and grab the leash. In our household, this is cue that a walk is going to happen. In this case, it acts as my question to Leo. I grab the leash and turn to Leo. First of all, I’m going to look at his gaze. Is he looking attentively at me, or is he avoiding eye contact? He often responds with his whole body. So if his ears are perked up and he is hopping out of bed to come over to me, then I’m going to take that to be a “yes.” A “no,” meanwhile, might be him looking straight ahead or hunkering his head down and not budging from his bed.
If I’ve read his behaviour to the best of my ability and knowledge of basset hounds, and I’ve made an interpretation of a “yes” or a “no” (and there is always an element of interpretation in science), then my next step is going to be to adjust my own behaviour accordingly. It’s a dialogue, after all, and he has just responded. Now it’s my turn to respond. If it’s a “yes” from him, then I’ll crouch down and put his leash on him, grab the keys, and open the front door. If it’s a “no” from Leo, then I might want to consider the possible causes for the “no.” Is he tired? Is he sick? Is he cold? Is there something else he’d rather be doing?
I’m going to base my next question on his last response. Again, I can look to his behaviour for some clues. If he is curled in the corner of his bed, maybe he is cold. I’ll try offering him a blanket and see how he responds to that. If he stretches out and closes his eyes once he is covered, perhaps this is a “yes” to a warm nap. If he doesn’t settle into a nap, perhaps there is something else that he wants. Maybe it’s that loaf of sourdough baking in the oven that he’s holding out for. We’ll never know, of course, unless we ask.
What can we learn from asking the animal?
By going through this conscientious and nuanced process of asking the animal what he or she wants, we are making the choice to know about the animal’s welfare rather than ignore it. No one is a perfect animal welfare scientist all the time. There are certainly days when I grab the leash and put it on Leo without stopping to ask him first whether he wants to go on a walk. It just means that those days I’m ignoring his emotions and what he wants so that I can get what I want. I’m not going to call my ignorance “bad training,” but it is certainly ignorant, in the sense that I’m ignoring relevant information that is freely available if I had just stopped to ask him. And there may be instances in which I don’t want to ask because I have to do the thing that I need to do (e.g., give him a bath) regardless of whether he wants it or not. But even in those instances of “necessary evils,” we could probably find ways to make those experiences a bit more positive if we at least asked the animal how they felt.
*Unfortunately, there used to be a misperception among some dog trainers that when a dog suddenly became inactive in response to a human’s displays of “dominance,” the dog was understanding what the human was asking and “submitting” to the human’s “authority.” I put these terms in quotes because these are all human constructs rather than the experiences of the dog. In reality, this is a classic example of freezing behaviour—the dog is hiding and waiting until the threat passes—and this is very different to a “yes” behaviour.
