Reiki for Shelter Cats: What the Forbes Story Shows

A Volunteer, Some Calmer Cats, and Reiki: What the Forbes Story Actually Shows

A volunteer uses Reiki to calm stressed shelter cats — here's what that warm story does and doesn't prove.

Forbes ran a human-interest piece (dated November 13, 2025) about a New York City volunteer who uses Reiki to help settle stressed shelter cats before adoption. It is a warm, first-person account of one person's experience, not a study, and it makes no attempt to be one. For anyone curious about Reiki, it is worth reading carefully: it shows how the practice tends to be described in everyday life, and it also shows exactly where an honest reader has to slow down and separate a lovely story from a proven result.

---

Part 1: What the Source Says

The article profiles Aurora González, an attorney based in New York City who volunteers with cats at the Best Friends Pet Adoption Center. She describes Reiki as an energetic therapy meant to reduce tension and stress, using hands that hover or offer light touch, so that frightened cats relax enough for their personalities to show — which, she says, makes them more likely to connect with adopters. The piece also includes shelter-wide figures from Best Friends and comments from the organisation's CEO about the broader need for volunteers.

Key Points

Forbes — "Volunteer Calms Shelter Cats With Innovative Approach: Reiki" (Nov 13, 2025) This summary was written from publicly available facts for explanatory purposes; see the original at the link above.

---

Part 2: What It Does — and Doesn't — Show

The first thing to be clear about is the genre. This is a feature story about one volunteer, written by a journalist who covers pets. It is not a controlled trial, a survey, or a dataset. That does not make it dishonest — it is doing exactly what a feature is meant to do — but it means the claims inside it are testimony, not measured evidence.

What the source genuinely establishes is modest and real: a volunteer has spent about three years offering Reiki to shelter cats, she describes calmer behaviour during and after her sessions, and she and the shelter's leadership value the involvement. The cat that rested its head and paw on her hand, the tabby named Kitty who was adopted after repeated sessions — these are the specific moments she reports, and there is no reason to doubt that she experienced them.

What the source does not show is why those cats settled. A story like this has no comparison group. We do not know how the same cats would have responded to a quiet person simply sitting on the floor at the cats' own pace, offering patience and gentle presence without any Reiki framing at all. Cats are highly responsive to calm body language, low movement, and unhurried attention — all of which a Reiki session naturally provides. So the calming could come from the energetic technique, from the ordinary human stillness that surrounds it, from the cat's own adjustment over time, or from all three together. The article cannot separate these, and it does not claim to.

It is also worth noting what the shelter statistics are, and are not, doing here. The figures — over 4,100 cats at the NYC center this year, and 2.3 million cats entering U.S. shelters in 2024 with around 188,000 killed — are context about the scale of the problem and the need for volunteers. They are not evidence about Reiki. A reader should not blur "many cats need help" into "Reiki is what helps them."

On efficacy in general, the careful position — the one echoed by bodies such as the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) — is that the scientific evidence for Reiki in humans is limited and inconclusive. There is even less formal study in animals. So the honest reading of this article is not "Reiki works on cats" and not "this is nonsense," but something quieter: one experienced volunteer consistently observes cats relaxing in her presence, and this single story cannot tell us what is doing the work.

One term is worth defining plainly. Reiki (霊気 / Reiki) is a Japanese practice in which the practitioner acts as a calm channel, using still or lightly touching hands; in the traditional Usui stream it traces back to Mikao Usui (臼井甕男). "Energetic therapy," as González uses it, is her own everyday description — a comfortable, non-medical way to talk about helping a living being feel settled.

---

Part 3: A Grounded Practitioner's Take

Read as what it is — one person's honest experience — this story sits well with me. It does not overclaim. Nobody in it says Reiki cured a cat or treated an illness; the language is about tension easing and a frightened animal relaxing enough to be itself. That is the right register. Reiki is not medicine, and the useful, truthful thing it points to here is relaxation and a sense of settling — for the cat, and arguably for the calm person kneeling on the floor as well.

Reiki can be given to animals, dogs and cats included, and I do offer it — but only ever with the owner's permission and at their request. In a shelter that permission structure is straightforward, since the volunteer works within the organisation's care. What I appreciate in González's account is the restraint of the method itself: she sits, she waits, she lets the cat come to her and decide. In my own tradition that is not a small detail — relaxation matters more than force, and a short, unhurried session is usually enough. My own morning practice is only about five minutes now. The idea that you must concentrate hard or push to make anything "happen" is, in my experience, backwards.

So a grounded reading does not require me to prove that some invisible energy moved the cats. It only requires honesty: a calm human, present and patient, is good for a stressed animal, and Reiki is one gentle, structured way of being exactly that kind of presence. Whether the effect is "the energy," the stillness, or the cat's own trust building over weeks, the animal is calmer and closer to a home. That is a good outcome, and it does not need to be inflated to be worth something.

---

FAQ

Q: Does this Forbes article prove that Reiki works on cats? A: No. It is a feature story about one volunteer's experience, with no control group and no measurements. It shows that she consistently observes cats relaxing during her sessions, but it cannot show whether the calming comes from the technique, from ordinary quiet human presence, or from time and trust. The honest summary is that the evidence here is a single first-person account, not a study.

Q: Is Reiki a treatment for an animal's medical or behavioural problems? A: No. Reiki is not medical care and is not a substitute for a veterinarian. In this story and in responsible practice generally, it is described only in terms of helping an animal feel more relaxed and settled. Any sick or injured animal needs proper veterinary attention.

Q: Can you really do Reiki on a cat that doesn't want it? A: The approach described in the article — and the one I follow — is the opposite of forcing. The practitioner sits still and lets the animal choose whether to approach and how much contact to accept. Consent, in the sense of the animal's willingness and the owner's permission, is part of doing it properly.

Q: What does the mainstream scientific view say about Reiki? A: Bodies such as the NCCIH describe the research on Reiki in humans as limited and inconclusive, and there is even less formal study in animals. That is why a grounded practitioner talks about relaxation and settling rather than cures or treatment, and stays honest about what has and hasn't been demonstrated.

---

The Bottom Line

• The source is a Forbes human-interest story (Nov 13, 2025) about a volunteer who offers Reiki to help calm stressed shelter cats before adoption.
• It genuinely shows one experienced volunteer's consistent observation of cats relaxing in her presence — but with no control group, it cannot show whether Reiki, ordinary quiet human presence, or simple time is responsible.
• The shelter statistics it cites are context about the need for volunteers, not evidence about Reiki; and the broader scientific view of Reiki remains limited and inconclusive.
• A grounded practitioner reads it as a warm, non-medical account of relaxation and gentle presence — worth appreciating exactly as it is, without inflating it into a cure or a proof.

Kept in that honest frame, the story is a nice reminder that patience, stillness, and consent are good for a frightened animal — which is a modest, real thing, and enough.

---

Sources

• Forbes — "Volunteer Calms Shelter Cats With Innovative Approach: Reiki" (Nov 13, 2025)