Thread: Feline Intuition for Death

Occasionally, families are spooked by a cat keeping death watch. And their wishes trump Oscar's. The cat is shooed from the bed and locked from the room. Oscar doesn't like this.

"He kind of rubs aggressively against the door, paces back and forth, yowls in protest," said Teno.

Other families are deeply appreciative of Oscar.

thats pretty scary.

Id like one of those cats to know when im gonna go still.

That is fascinating.
Reminds me of reports of dogs that can tell if people have cancer even before they are diagnosed.

I saw this story a couple days ago. And saw a joke about it on Jay Leno the other night... "Did anyone pause to think these people were ALLERGIC TO CATS??"


Anyway, I'm not surprised an animal would be able to pick up on this sort of thing. Animals are WAY more perceptive than people give them credit for, and they can sense very subtle changes in energy. It's sweet that this cat learned to comfort these people in their last moments - or at least that's what I'd like to think the cat was doing.

That's a nice story. I love cats.
This reminds me of a story of mine. I was at my great aunt's funeral and it was a bright, sunny, warm day. We were all outside and the final prayers were being said before the casket was lowered into the ground. My dad pointed out to me that two hawks were circling in the sky above the casket. At first they were relatively low but as they circled, they gradually elevated higher and higher into the sky. They kept rising until you couldn't even see them anymore.

This event really blew my mind. It was really nice too.

Originally Posted by Burns

I saw this story a couple days ago. And saw a joke about it on Jay Leno the other night... "Did anyone pause to think these people were ALLERGIC TO CATS??"

I would have gone the "cats are the ones killing them" route, but I guess that works, too.

Pretty cool.

Somehow, it seems animals use their senses just WAY better then humans. : / In theory, we all could predict the weather like birds can, and notice people dying because of change in metaolism.

To people who think this cat is a psychic, see if he purred before someone busts a cap in some healthy dude's ass.

I kind of agree, he's sensing changes in their systems of some kind.

Certain humans have honed their senses as well. There are these completely blind guides to some desert my science teacher told me about that navigate through the desert using smell.

Originally Posted by Mark75

I would have gone the "cats are the ones killing them" route, but I guess that works, too.

yeah that's what it meant - that the people were allergic and suffered severe reactions and died nvm

Originally Posted by Burns

yeah that's what it meant - that the people were allergic and suffered severe reactions and died nvm

I meant that they were killing them with murderous intent.

That's pretty cool. I saw that on the news about a week ago. They said the cat will cuddle up with the people about to die or something.

The grim reaper has taken the form of a cat. *commence doom music*


But seriously, it is related to something with a sense of smell. Humans, and really mammals in general experience attraction of the sexual nature because of something called pheromones that we give off. We pick up on other people's pheromones by way of sense of smell.

I imagine that a similar thing is happening here (obviously not with sex pheromones) but with some other chemical that is released near the death process, and the cat is able to pick up on it. But then there's still the matter of why the cat would care...

Originally Posted by Mark75

I meant that they were killing them with murderous intent.

ah gotcha

What would the cat do if it were about to die? Would it start chasing its tail?