It’s a busy day at the Rex Center in Pacifica. They’ve got back-to-back swim lessons and a bustle of Dr. Ilana’s clients cycling in for acupuncture, sport rehabilitation and fitness consultations. As Dr. Ilana sets up a client on the aquatic treadmill, the 2:30 p.m. swim lesson is well underway upstairs. 

“You’re having a breakthrough today,” says head swim coach and Rex Center owner Ellen Davison as she guides her student to make a sharp turn in the pool for the first time. “Good job. Let’s do it again, right away.”

This is swim student Summer Klein’s third swim and nothing would seem particularly unusual about any of this, except that Summer is a dog. In fact, all of Dr. Ilana’s clients are dogs too. 

“Human physical therapy has been around for a lot longer. Veterinarians are behind the curb a little bit,” says Dr. Ilana Strubel, a veterinarian and owner of A Well Adjusted Pet, which operates out of the Rex Center. “When we do a knee replacement on a person, they have physical therapy. So when we do a knee replacement on a dog, they would probably benefit from physical therapy too. We started asking as veterinarians ,‘What more can we do for our patients?’”

The Rex Center offers a warm-water fitness pool in conjunction with Strubel’s physical rehab and holistic services, including massage therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic and sport rehabilitation for dogs.  The center also coordinates helpful workshops such as pet first aid, which teaches pet CPR and rescue breathing.

Simba, a 6-year-old shih tzu, has been seeing Dr. Ilana  since January after undergoing neck surgery. Under Dr. Ilana’s supervision, he comes twice a week for Pilates and the aquatic treadmill.

“It’s been a huge success,” says Simba’s owner, Susan Atherton, of San Francisco. “I noticed within a month he was improving, and after about six months it was a dramatic difference.”

Pacifica resident Shotsy Faust has been taking her 12-year-old dog, Hudson, to swim in the warm-water fitness pool for two years.

“We just noticed that he was not getting off the couch at all. We decided that warm water would really be the best thing for him,” says Faust, who has noticed a lot less limping and more energy from Hudson. “He was just getting so old and arthritic. This has made a big difference. We never knew he could swim.”

In fact, many dogs that come to the Rex Center’s fitness pool have never been in the water before and come solely to learn how to swim.

“You would think it would just be a natural thing for them to get in the water but a lot of dogs have a fear of it,” explains swim coach and administrator Stephanie Salomonsen. “They don’t know to use their back legs to help them control themselves in the water.”

Others, bring their dogs to the fitness pool to lose weight.

“Animal obesity is horrible. It’s out of control,” says Davison, who originally joined the Rex Center as a client after her 15-year-old dog, Bishop, suffered a shoulder injury.

“It was recommended through my veterinarian,” says Davison. “We were one of the first clients.”

Davison began working at the Rex Center almost immediately after discovering it in 2009. She had been living on the road in a fifth wheel recreational vehicle for the 10 years prior with her husband who is a big-equipment union operator.

“I just fell in love with this area,” says Davison. “I started working here and he went back on the road and I didn’t want to. I just latched onto this place and it was my new love.”

In 2014, Davison purchased the Rex Center and says the pool operates on an age-old wisdom.

“Water has been a healing medium for centuries, since we’ve been around. And there’s a reason for it,” says Davison. “It’s real and it works.”