11/08/2025
Have you heard the term "Cooperative care"? It has become popular among cat and dog behavior enthusiasts and something that might be cropping up on your feed if your algorithm is anything like mine:-) the term is relatively new but the concept is not! At least not in the wild animal and exotic husbandry world. Cooperative care, simply put, means teaching the animal that you are handling to voluntarily participate in the handling rather than using more stressful or invasive methods. This handling might be to trim nails, inspect a wound, brush teeth, clean ears, administer eye drops, or even draw blood! The veterinary staff in zooscand wild animal parks/sanctuaries have been using creative ways to convince the animals they WANT veterinary care, for many decades. It is not safe or feasible to tranquilize restrain or sedate large animals such as big cats, bears, wolves, giraffes, elephants and hippos for simple and quick procedures that need to happen regularly. Not sure if you've ever tried to "burrito" a tiger with a towel but I don't recommend it. I love this post shared by the Central Park Zoo because it is a perfect example of the payoff for both the animal and the humans, for investing the time and effort to train and implement "cooperative care" methods. Although Cooperative care is basically a necessity in the wild animal husbandry world, it is something that can be very beneficial and effective for you and your domesticated household cats! It requires slowing down and teaching each step of the procedure separately and pairing it up with a reward that your cat finds motivating enough to tolerate whatever stress or discomfort they might experience from the procedure. With Cooperative care, if your cat learns to look forward to and love nail trims, pills or eye drops that's a bonus! But not necessarily the goal. The goal is for your cat to understand that if they *tolerate* these procedures then a big reward is imminent! (Hence the "cooperation").
