The 3Fs as conditions of being: relational ontology and equine welfare in disaster response and reconciliation.

Disaster relief work requires the collaboration of many stakeholders and can be viewed through a One Health lens, emphasising transdisciplinarity and an openness to different ways of knowing as well as an appreciation of the interdependence of human, animal, environmental health, and welfare. This perspective piece provides an autoethnographic account of a wildfire response in Western Canada in which a herd of free-ranging horses was rescued outside of conventional disaster management protocol. Through lived experience, the convergence between equine welfare, reconciliation, and relational ontology became visible. This has implications both for disaster management and for Fraser's 3Fs of equine welfare, offering a philosophical expansion that recognises conditions of being that, together, co-constitute the potential for flourishing. The perspective advanced here aims to shift equine welfare practice from the management of discrete variables toward a practice that is defined by relational integrity and accountability, in which humans and horses are bounded beings, where flourishing results from honouring the dynamic and entangled system-understood as a shared ground of being-that humans, animals, and land belong to. This work contributes to One Health approaches by foregrounding and exemplifying relational knowledge, which is often excluded from traditionally positivist disciplines. This work situates equine welfare within broader ethical movements, including decolonial projects, efforts toward multispecies justice, and the development of One Health approaches. This alignment extends responsibility beyond individual caregivers and invites a reorientation of welfare science toward a relational ontology, offering a framework that is both practically grounded and philosophically expansive.