Fuzzy Paws of Death

[wendybeth]

Meet Oscar, the feline harbinger of Death! (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959718/)


Actually, he's a cutie. Would make me nervous if he started getting all affectionate, but he's still pretty adorable.

[Stan4dSteph]

Hopefully none of the old people are allergic to cats, or Oscar might just speed along their demise.

[Gemini Cricket]

If they killed the cat, would they all live forever?

[Alex]

I'd hate to be the first family to get the "hurry, your dad is dying" call, rush the family there, dad doesn't die, and then you're told that the only reason anybody thought he would is that the cat had settled in for an nap.

[Kevy Baby]

Okay, my first reaction was surprise that they allowed the cat into the hospital (the whole "no animals allowed" thing).

But I actually find the story very fascinating. I would like to see this experimented with other cats.

I wonder what the cat does when no one dies for several days - does he get restless and start chewing through life support cords?

[Alex]

I'd be very interested in some controlled observation to find out what it really going on (as the article said it could be the cat really detecting impending death somehow or many other things that are just secondary triggers) but I doubt anybody there is much interested and it is just a comforting local phenomenon.

Wouldn't surprise me either way but if it isn't direct detection of deathliness I'd think the most likely altnerative explanation is that these people are close enough to death that human behavior around them is changing in some way that draws the cats attention (if most of them are so far gone they don't know the cat is there I'd expect that death is not a surprise to anybody.

It'd be interesting if the cat did it to someone that everybody thought was otherwise reasonably healthy and then that person croaked. (And to find out how often the cat sleeps somewhere, the person doesn't die, and they just don't remember it.)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

If they killed the cat, would they all live forever?*envisions an elderly lady taking aim with her bedpan*

[Tref]

Is the cat collecting their souls? And can he (http://www.caption-this.com/50800582.jpg) save us?

[3894]

I believe it.

My cat Sally is a nurse cat. When one of us humans in the house is sick, she goes on duty. She will stay by the sickie's side night and day, following that person to the bathroom and back to bed, to the kitchen and back to bed, to the tv and back to bed. It is not subtle. It is a cat closely monitoring the movements of a sick human, staying very close, always resting a paw on the sickie's shoulder or hand.

Why she does this is up for debate. It's only when someone is sick. She's an arthritic old thing and otherwise can't be bothered to disturb herself much, except to kill the odd litter of baby bunnies in the garden.

[CoasterMatt]

Whenever I have a seizure, our kitty Steven sticks super close to me.

[RStar]

I've noticed our cats sticking close when we are sick or had an operation. They have a sense for that sort of thing, I'm sure.

[3894]

My husband wants to know if the cat can predict heart attack or if it's reacting to the altered smell of a patient whose kidneys have stopped functioning in preparation for death.

[Snowflake]

Ha! Tango is only concerned whether or not when I go to the freezer to get ice for whatever I'm drinking I also pull out a frozen shrimp for her.

[mistyisjafo]

Oscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his “compassionate hospice care.”
:rolleyes:

[Kevy Baby]

:rolleyes:I don't know - I thought it was kind of appropriate.

[Morrigoon]

There is a boatload of evidence of animals being able to sense changes in the human body. Just look at the dogs they train to predict seizures... the dogs can give a human enough warning to stop what they're doing and get into a safe position before the seizure starts.

The question is: can that cat teach other cats?