Surgical trauma and chronically painful conditions—within our comfort level but beyond theirs?

C oncern for the way animals are treated, and thus animal welfare, is not new.However, this concern continues to increase, and rightly so.As veterinarians, we constantly are being presented with new medical and surgical techniques that lead to more substantial interventions for animals, resulting in greater longevity.1,2 A continued reappraisal of how these advances affect animal welfare is only right.Animal welfare has many aspects, and one of those is pain.Pain is an obvious welfare concern if we assume that animals perceive pain in a similar manner to humans.Pain in humans has both a sensory and an affective, or emotional, component.The exact nature of the emotional component in animals will remain uncertain, but the aversive nature of animal pain has generally been accepted.This article addresses the welfare aspects of pain associated with surgical intervention for ongoing disease and chronically painful conditions such as some cancers and osteoarthritic disease.This is of particu-