Tutores da região centro-oeste de minas gerais e sua visão sobre bem-estar animal.

Animals are increasingly common in the lives of many families around the world. There is still a lot of ignorance about the legislation and neglect of the care involved in the guardianship of these animals, leading to mistreatment and abandonment. Therefore, animal welfare is compromised,which explains the impacts to environment and public health. Carrying out actions that raise awareness among the population about well-being, responsible protection and zoonoses are important for the development of an empathetic and responsible society. To develop the approach, it is important to know the local limitations and needs, therefore, the objective of this work was to obtain information about the profile of pet owners in the Central- West region of the state of Minas Gerais, about animal welfare and custody. responsible . Data collection was carried out through the dissemination of a mixed electronic form made up of deposits with objectively asked questions about demographic data, characterization of the resident and the animal, environmental, nutritional, sanitary, behavioral and psychosocial needs of the animals, opinion about stray animals, knowledge about wild animals and knowledge about animal welfare and responsible ownership. Comparisons were performed using Fischer's exact test and chi-square test (Social Sciences Statistics), being considered significant when p<0.05. Responses were obtained and, of this number, 427 were from owners of conventional or non-conventional companion animals. Most owners have dogs, birds and cats. Furthermore, 55.5% of the animals are female, 48.2% do not have a defined breed and 62.8% are not castrated. Regarding well-being and responsible custody, participants report having already heard about the topics (95.7% and 83.8%, respectively) and recognize that animals are sentient beings (99.8%), however, the majority only consult a veterinarian when the animal is sick, do not carry out the complete vaccination schedule and do not have the animal(s) castrated, which characterizes negligent behavior towards animals. Therefore, pet owners in the Central-West region of Minas Gerais have only basic and limited notions of animal welfare and responsible care, which leads them to neglect and disregard the animals' various needs, such as veterinary monitoring, vaccination, population control and access to the street, interaction with other animals and humans. Therefore, the specific health, nutritional and environmental needs are still unknown to the population of this region, which reinforces the importance of this type of research