Brucie, I believe there is one breed of cats that do swim but most cats hate water. I have had to bath a cat a couple of times and can assure you that you need to excercise great care unless you want to discover what they really can do with thier claws and teeth.

The other fun one with a cat is trying to get a tablet down them. Vets seem to make it look so easy but I can't do it at all. Get thier mouth open, drop the thing in, get your arms ripped to shreds while half strangling the creature to try to make it swallow only to find as soon as you release the cat, it still had the tablet in its mouth and spits it out. When our cats need medication, we try to hide it in thier food but even then you can find they leave a little portion of the food - the bit with the tablet in.