[Suffering and misfortune--the beginning of comprehension]

Pain, suffering and damage are important items of the animal protection law and thus the basis for its accomplishment. It is the aim of this paper to give a review on those methods which are available to record and to assess well-being or suffering of animals. Since suffering cannot be measured directly different indicators such as health, productivity, physiological and biochemical parameters and behaviour have to be used in order to obtain conclusive evidence of suffering or well-being. Since it has to be taken into account that the individual indicators are of limited value with respect to their reliability and accuracy the combination of these indicators has to be recommended.