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Animals Sensing Humans' Imminent Deaths

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tattooted

Gone But Not Forgotten
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On a somewhat related note, one of the cancer hospices in my town keeps a cat in-house. According to the nurses, when the cat camps in a particular patient's room it means the patient isn't going to live through the night. The cat only seems to do this with patients who don't have any family around to visit them. The nurses think the cat can somehow sense incipient death, and goes to keep the dying person company.

Or maybe it's a case of feline Munchausen by Proxy? :D
 
Seriously. I hope someone is watching this cat during the night.
 
I'm sure both the patients and the cat are adequately monitored through the night. But looking at things from the patient's point of view, having the cat mark you for death could hardly be comforting.
 
tattooted said:
I'm sure both the patients and the cat are adequately monitored through the night. But looking at things from the patient's point of view, having the cat mark you for death could hardly be comforting.
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May sound bizarre, but for some patients its probably a blessing when the cat comes to their room. For a terminally ill patient, the end is often wished for by the time it comes. That is if the patient is lucid enough to know what the hell is going on around them by that point.

I have had many a terminally ill or very frail, elderly patient say to me, with genuine sincerity, that they 'just want to die now' and that they are ready to go. :sob: :nooo:
Witchflame
 
Wasn't there a case recently where a dog in a hospice was found to be entering only the rooms of those about to die? As a dog lover, I'd hate to be put in a position where I was throwing things at a friendly pooch in order to prevent it from approaching me!
 
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Naughty_Felid said:
There's Oscar too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat)
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Stephen King's 'Doctor Death' was inspired in part by such a cat. Sadly, the novel is disappointingly short on death-spotting cat-narrative.

When I worked in care homes there were a few institutional pet cats present, all hugely fat from overfeeding! but none was known for picking out dying residents. Or if they were, staff kept it quiet, possibly in case of causing alarm.
 
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