Cats can overcome fear of water to benefit from aquatic therapy

Cats with injuries and disabilities can benefit from underwater treadmill therapy and swimming pools without fear, thanks to a newly developed training protocol.

This adaptation programme leads to low stress levels, meaning cats can take advantage of the same kinds of water-based rehabilitation therapies that help heal dogs, horses and humans, while feeling safe and calm, says Stefania Uccheddu at San Marco Veterinary Clinic and Laboratory in Padua, Italy.

“It’s amazing, really, because it comes down to a matter of familiarisation,” she says. “Cats just don’t know what water is – sort of like when people see the seaside for the first time. But when cats get familiar with the physiotherapy environment, water is no longer a problem.”

Underwater treadmills and swimming pool therapies allow people and animals to exercise while bearing less weight, making it an ideal form of rehabilitation and strength training for orthopaedic problems, such as joint or tendon injuries, neurological conditions and geriatric care.

But cats often experience extreme stress when faced with water – possibly because they evolved in the desert – and unfamiliar places, meaning owners and therapists usually opt to skip aquatic therapy. In the few rehabilitation centres where cats engage in water programmes, they usually follow an approach designed for dogs, says Uccheddu.

So she and her colleagues decided to develop a cat-focused protocol. The animals first explore the room and dry equipment, then feel a moist towel on their paws. Later, they stand in 5 centimetres of warm water, hear the noise of the treadmill and stand in increasingly deeper water, always with the owner nearby. The team rewarded the cats each step of the way with whatever prize an individual preferred – whether that was food, petting or a toy.

“Especially with young cats, when you put something moving in front of them, it’s like they don’t even think about the exercise,” says Uccheddu.

The group selected 12 of their clinic’s feline patients with neurological or orthopaedic disease to test their protocol, representing cats of various ages, breeds and living situations.

Throughout the training programme, they monitored each cat for specific stress behaviours like meowing, nose-licking, showing a fear posture or trying to hide. They stopped the session if the cat showed more than five of these behaviours in a minute.

All 12 cats successfully completed their rehab programmes, which, depending on their issues, lasted from a few weeks to a year, says Uccheddu. And each animal showed significant physical improvement, with some making full recoveries and others being well enough to climb trees again.

Encouraged by the results, the team has starting implementing the protocol in swimming pools, adding different lighting and music to make the experience more calming for the patients. “The options depend on the cats,” says Uccheddu. “Some like classical music. Others prefer Madonna.”

The findings underline that cats shouldn’t be automatically excluded from aquatic therapy just because of their reputation for having a fear of water, she says. “The good news is that any clinic can follow this protocol and get the same results.”

Carly Moody at the University of California, Davis, says the team’s use of training techniques to change cats’ behaviour is much needed. “Very few groups around the world actually do research on companion cats, in terms of a welfare and behaviour perspective,” she says. “So it’s amazing to see this.”

The new protocol could be incorporated into clinics across the globe for better cat welfare, says Moody, and could also improve safety among veterinarians and assistants who risk getting scratched or bitten by frightened cats. “This paper offers a great example of it being successful, and it could be applied in so many ways – not just with water,” she says.