For some animal-focused organisations, the health and wellbeing of children and adults at risk is central to their work, with safeguarding given equal weight to animal welfare across their services.

In others… nothing. Safeguarding policies and procedures are neglected or overlooked. Frontline staff have minimal training or guidance on what to do if they have concerns. Their duty of care is to the animals, not people, right?

Wrong. But there are now signs that this mentality is beginning to shift. Ruby’s Law is progressing through Parliament, a related campaign for Holly’s Law has won cross-party support, and the government’s own Animal Welfare Strategy for England now includes a section on tackling pet and domestic abuse in tandem. Together, they’re putting a spotlight on organisations’ duty of care towards the people they work with. For larger organisations, with in-house expertise, much of this work is already well established. But, as is so often the case, it’s the smaller ones without the same governance oversight that face the steepest learning curve.

For anyone working in, or building a career in, the animal sector, it’s important to consider what these changes may mean. Understanding what you can do to help embed good safeguarding practice into your day-to-day role matters, even if the organisation you work for is lagging behind.

What do we mean by safeguarding?

It’s worth being clear about what safeguarding actually means before going further, since people’s understanding of the term often depends on where they’ve previously worked. In UK law, there are two related but separate frameworks:

• Safeguarding adults means protecting a person’s right to live safely, free from abuse and neglect, a duty that applies specifically to an “adult at risk”: someone aged 18 or over who has care and support needs, because of age, illness, disability or something similar, and who, because of those needs, may be unable to protect themselves from harm or exploitation.
• Safeguarding children means protecting children from maltreatment, preventing harm to their health or development, and making sure they grow up in safe, effective care, set out in the government’s Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance.

These are the definitions used in England; safeguarding law, terminology and referral routes vary somewhat across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so always check local guidance too. For the full picture beyond this summary, the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and gov.uk’s own safeguarding guidance are the definitive starting points.

Most of the recent political attention has focused on domestic abuse specifically. But in practice, most organisations apply safeguarding more broadly than that, covering neglect, self-harm, bullying, harassment and exploitation too. Any instance where an individual is at risk of harm can fall under the same duty of care. The gaps explored in this piece apply across all of that, not just to domestic abuse cases.

Where safeguarding is already done well

Before looking at the gaps, let’s focus on the parts of the sector already doing this well.

Assistance dog charities are one example. For the majority of trainers/instructors, the safety and wellbeing of their service users is integral to their day-to-day work, with a safeguarding culture often embedded through structured internal staff training. In its published safeguarding statement, Guide Dogs, the largest of the assistance dog charities, commits to protecting “everyone we come into contact with” from harm through its work. This is reinforced at a sector level too: ADUK, the umbrella body for UK assistance dog charities, only admits members that have been independently accredited by Assistance Dogs International and/or the International Guide Dog Federation, with re-assessment every five years. IGDF’s own standards are explicit on this point, requiring organisations to have “documented policies and processes for safe working practices, including written risk assessments for relevant activities and safeguarding policies.”

Equestrian coaching tells a similar story. BHS accredited riding instructors adhere to strict safeguarding guidelines, including a mandatory DBS check for anyone coaching under-18s, safeguarding training, and a sector-wide code of conduct, with both the DBS and training renewable every three years. There are also clear processes and guidance for reporting concerns through named Safeguarding Officers at club, member body, and national level.

Where the gaps are

Elsewhere in the sector, the picture can look very different.

Safeguarding in rescue and rehoming

Most of the large animal rescue and welfare charities, such as RSPCA, Cats Protection, Blue Cross, Wood Green and Dogs Trust, have well-established (although not always up to date) safeguarding policies, including best practice measures such as safer recruitment, role-appropriate training and periodic DBS rechecks. But unlike the sector-wide commitment seen in assistance dogs, that consistency doesn’t extend across rescue and rehoming as a whole.

The Association of Dogs and Cats Homes (ADCH) is the sector body for rescue and rehoming organisations specifically. Safeguarding, DBS checks, or reference to vulnerable adults don’t feature anywhere in its Minimum Welfare and Operational Standards, its guidance for rescue and rehoming organisations, or its newly published strategy for the sector through to 2031.

Safeguarding in zoos and aquariums

BIAZA, the sector body for zoos and aquariums, exists specifically to raise standards across its membership, and its formal requirements cover animal husbandry, veterinary care, breeding programmes, education policy, and conservation activity in detail. Safeguarding doesn’t feature anywhere in them, despite zoos and aquariums being places where staff work directly with children every day through school visits, keeper experiences, and education programmes.

It’s not just BIAZA either: the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 and the Secretary of State’s Standards of Modern Zoo Practice, which set the actual legal conditions for a zoo licence, don’t mention safeguarding, DBS checks, or vulnerable visitors anywhere, including in the standards due to take effect in 2027. As in rescue, some of the larger zoos, such as Marwell and Chester Zoo, have well-established and publicly available safeguarding policies, but it’s not currently a requirement at BIAZA or licensing level.

Safeguarding in veterinary practice

Veterinary practice tells a similarly mixed story. Individual vets are well served: BVA hosts guidance on recognising abuse in animals and people (produced by The Links Group and supported by BVA’s own Animal Welfare Foundation), runs a Links Veterinary Training Initiative, and RCVS provides its own separate guidance on handling suspected abuse. But none of that is actually enforced. RCVS’s Practice Standards Scheme, the accreditation most practices sign up to, doesn’t mention safeguarding or vulnerable clients anywhere in its current rules or modules.

None of the large corporate veterinary groups, IVC Evidensia, Medivet, CVS Group, VetPartners, or Linnaeus, publish a public safeguarding commitment. And while “veterinary surgeon” is a listed profession under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, making vets eligible for a Standard DBS check on entry to the profession, that’s neither a legal requirement nor the same as the Enhanced check used for genuine regulated activity with vulnerable adults. A vet can be excellent on this, entirely on their own initiative, but nothing in their registration or accreditation identifies those who aren’t.

It’s a strange pattern once you notice it. ADCH, BIAZA, and RCVS’s own accreditation scheme all exist specifically to raise standards across their part of the sector, and each has set detailed requirements for almost everything else, animal welfare, veterinary care, education, conservation, governance, but not this. The gap isn’t really about any one organisation falling short. It’s that safeguarding depends almost entirely on whether a workplace happens to prioritise it, rather than on any baseline the sector’s own standard-setters actually require.

Of course, safeguarding isn’t only about the people these organisations serve, either. Staff themselves can be vulnerable, with burnout and suicide risk both well documented problems in this sector. Thankfully, this is one area where there has been real progress. Since 1 April 2026, RCVS has required every veterinary practice, whether or not it’s accredited under its Practice Standards Scheme, to have its own suicide prevention plan, assessing risks like access to lethal medicines and lone working. Similarly, awareness on recognising and responding to compassion fatigue in the animal sector has grown significantly over the last few years, with organisations like ADCH regularly including sessions in their annual conference to support smaller organisations. Both are genuine, practical steps, but neither extends to the vulnerable people staff encounter in the course of their work, which remains the gap the rest of this piece is about.

The push for change

What the bill would do

Ruby’s Law is named after Ruby, the cat belonging to Christina Warner, a family law barrister who has spent years representing survivors of domestic abuse. After Ruby died in 2023, Warner turned years of frustration from her casework into a campaign. She had represented client after client who stayed in abusive relationships specifically because they were afraid of what would happen to their pet if they left, and family law had nothing that could actually protect that animal.

That campaign has become the Domestic Abuse (Pets etc) Bill, which had its first reading in the House of Commons on 22 June 2026 and has a second reading scheduled for 16 October. It would be the first time family law in England and Wales explicitly extends court protection orders to cover pets, amending the Family Law Act 1996 so non-molestation and occupation orders can address an animal’s safety and custody, and widening the Domestic Abuse Act 2021‘s definition of coercive and economic abuse to recognise harm to a pet as a tactic of control. Right now, a court can order an abuser to stay away from a person, but has no power, and often no obligation, to consider what happens to the family pet left behind.

Who’s backing it

Interestingly, this campaign hasn’t come from the organisations you’d expect. It’s officially backed by Causeway Coast Dog Rescue, a Northern Ireland-based dog rescue, the Celia Hammond Animal Trust, and two domestic abuse charities, Domestic Abuse Alliance and Domestic Abuse Education. None of the big national animal welfare brands, RSPCA, Dogs Trust, Cats Protection, appear anywhere in its materials.

Wider signs of change

Ruby’s Law isn’t an isolated effort either. Holly’s Law, a separate campaign led by Naturewatch Foundation for a public register of animal abusers modelled on Clare’s Law, gained cross-party support at a Westminster Hall debate on 29 June 2026, backed by a petition of over 238,000 signatures. And in December 2025, the government’s own Animal Welfare Strategy for England included, for the first time, a dedicated section on tackling pet abuse and domestic abuse, committing to fund research into the link, train vets to recognise non-accidental pet injuries as a possible sign of domestic abuse, and strengthen microchipping protections against perpetrators.

What this means if you’re on the front line

If you’re a vet, a vet nurse, a rescue or shelter worker, or a pet groomer, you’re often one of the few people who sees an animal and its owner together. Sometimes this will be in circumstances a victim’s friends or family may never get access to.

Zoo and wildlife park staff have a similar vantage point with children specifically. School visits, keeper experiences and education sessions put them in front of children outside a classroom setting, often for longer and in a more relaxed environment than a teacher gets, which can make it easier to notice how a child responds to animals, to strangers, or to the adults they’re with.

Unexplained injuries, a pattern of last-minute cancelled appointments, or an owner who seems anxious about leaving an animal in someone else’s care can all be worth taking seriously. This connection between animal abuse and domestic abuse is well documented enough to have its own name, the Link, and it’s exactly the kind of pattern that safeguarding training in the education or assistance dog sectors would have prepared you to recognise and act on.

In general rescue and rehoming, you may simply never have been given that training, through no fault of your own.

A quick safeguarding check

Given how mixed the picture is across the sector, it’s worth checking where you personally stand rather than assuming your own workplace is either fine or hopeless. Ask yourself:

• Does your organisation have a written safeguarding policy, and would you know where to find it?
• Is there a named person you’d go to with a concern about an owner’s safety, not just their pet’s?
• Have you ever had training on recognising signs of abuse, in a person as well as an animal?
• Would you know what to do if an owner told you, directly or indirectly, that they were afraid of someone at home?
• If you carry out home checks or handle animal relinquishments, how would you respond to signs that someone might not be coping? E.g. they are struggling to care for themselves or access support.
• Does your employer carry out any criminal record checks on new staff, and do you know what level?

It’s worth remembering that recognising a safeguarding concern doesn’t mean you’re responsible for resolving it. Often, flagging it with the right person in the right way is all that’s needed for the appropriate steps to follow. The rule of thumb is recognise, record, report: don’t investigate a concern yourself, confront anyone involved, or promise complete confidentiality, just pass it on through the right channel and let those trained to handle it take it from there.

If you answered no to more than one of the above points, you’re in the same position as many others working in animal welfare right now. That’s exactly what the next section is for.

How to upskill now, without waiting for a mandate

You don’t need ADCH, RCVS, or your employer to make this a requirement before you can act. The Links Group runs free training for vets, rescue staff, and other animal professionals, including its Veterinary Training Initiative and regular webinars.

Refuge4Pets offers a similar free course specifically on animal abuse as a control tactic, with practical guidance on including pets in a survivor’s safety plan.

Neither requires a specialist background, and both are aimed squarely at people already doing the kind of work our readers do.

If you want to support Ruby’s Law itself, its own site has a template for emailing your MP ahead of the bill’s second reading on 16 October, currently the only concrete action the campaign is asking people to take.

Where to go for more

• Ruby’s Law for the campaign and the bill’s progress
• The Links Group for training on the animal abuse and domestic abuse link
• Refuge4Pets for training on including pets in safety planning
• Domestic Abuse (Pets etc) Bill for the bill’s official progress through Parliament
• Ann Craft Trust Safeguarding Checklist for a free self-assessment aimed at small charities and community groups without dedicated safeguarding staff
• NSPCC Learning for general child safeguarding guidance built for the voluntary and community sector

If you or someone you know needs support, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free and confidential on 0808 2000 247.