Sassy in the river: How did they pull it off?

I remember reading how they did the sassy scen and it's pretty neat, so the shots where you see the landscape in the real river is when they have a fake cat, either a stuffed thing or a robotic thing. The close ups the cat is swimming but it's a trained carpt and they didn't shoot those scenes in an actual river, but I a safe restricted area. I know that one scene you are talking about though, where you see the cat meowing and its head goes under and back up, and it really does look distressed, but sometimes I think that that's just a human thing we do, add the distressed feel to a cat meowing cause it's only natural for us ain't it?

Anyways, every time there was a water scene they had different animals that were specifically trained for water, kinda like stunt doubles. Neat huh?
Don't look at me

I remember reading how they did the sassy scen and it's pretty neat, so the shots where you see the landscape in the real river is when they have a fake cat, either a stuffed thing or a robotic thing. The close ups the cat is swimming but it's a trained carpt and they didn't shoot those scenes in an actual river, but I a safe restricted area. I know that one scene you are talking about though, where you see the cat meowing and its head goes under and back up, and it really does look distressed, but sometimes I think that that's just a human thing we do, add the distressed feel to a cat meowing cause it's only natural for us ain't it?

Anyways, every time there was a water scene they had different animals that were specifically trained for water, kinda like stunt doubles. Neat huh?
Don't look at me

Disney was VERY careful about no harm coming to the animal actors, either physical or emotional. From HumaneHollywood:

"In the film the rocks and log had been strategically placed so the cat could jump from one to the other. When Sassy goes into the river, she was put in shallow water with a harness on her. She was then released by one trainer and swam to a second trainer who had a lead attached to the harness. There were also four people under water to monitor her safety. Several cats had been trained for this scene. Each was only in the water eight seconds. There are many shots of the cat being swept up by the fast-moving river as she heads for a very high waterfall. This was filmed using a fake cat. There are close-up shots of a frightened cat and then a shot of Sassy going over the waterfall. This scene was shot in many cuts. Fake cats, a mechanical cat, and a real cat were used. When the real cat was used, she was not in a river, but a heated pool."

There was abuse in the original film from the early 60's but by the 90's awareness had been raised and the last thing Disney wanted was the mountain of bad press that would come from harming animal actors.

"Nothing is more ill bred than trying to steal the affections of someone else's dog."

I know your post is really old, but I wanted to tell you that Chance is an American Bulldog, not a Boxer.

And how did they get shadow to limo at the end?