CAT WHO CAN SMELL DEATH

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Jeffrey Newman

There are some things about animals we just don’t understand yet, like Oscar, a prescient four year old cat living in a Providence Rhode Island nursing home. Oscar has consistently and reliably been able to sense when residents are approaching their final hours and he curls up next to them. Dr. David Dosa wrote about oscar in The New England Journal of Medicine saying that Oscar has been accurate in 25 cases so far. Dosa also said that the relatives of residents take solace from the phenomenon and his companionship is appreciated. Oscar was originally adopted by the staff as a kitten and this has been his home ever since. He makes his own rounds sniffing patients and looking them over and the would curl up beside a patient who died a few hours later. Sometimes, when he is not allowed to stay with a dying patient, he paces and meows outside their room. There is a commendation wall plaque at the nursing home awarded to Oscar by the local hospice agency which reads “For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat.” See “A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat” David M. Dosa MD NEJM Volume 357:328-329.