I work on a visual effects comapany, we are working (among other things) on the VXs for a terror movie, I´m the lead animator for a full CG character, a cat. It shows up before someone dies, maybe I should call it Oscar?
But it´s not a nice kitty, looks perfectly awful and uncuddly.
My parents swear that their dog knows when my dad has a low blood sugar in the middle of the night–she has supposedly jumped up and licked his face until he woke up.
Yeah, but the article said that he makes rounds of the patients rooms, so if you’re there and he peeps his nose around the corner, tell me the first thing running through your mind is not going to be, “Aaaah! Death kitty! Get away!”
I figure if the internal organs are failing, wastes that are normally expelled through them (lungs, bladder, GI, and even skin) would be chemically different and therefore have a different odor to an animal with a much better sense of smell than we do (cats and dogs). What’s weird is Oscar’s compulsion to stay with the dying folks.
The good thing, according to that article is, the people he curls up with are not aware of either his special talent or his presence during the death watch. It was particularly interesting that, on one occasion, he was made to leave and paced and fussed outside the door of the dying person. There could be many theories about what’s going on with Oscar, but I really can’t see how the fussing outside the door could fit into any of them.
I wish we could somehow find out what the deal really is, but I doubt that’s possible.
There’s a good photo of him here on CNN, even though it’s just a repeat of the AP story. I love the mundanity of the photo caption: “Oscar the cat doesn’t like to be put out in the hall when a patient is dying.”
I wonder whether the deaths would stop in that home if someone were to shoot the cat.
That’s a terrible sentiment. The cat isn’t killing people, he’s just seeing them off. Although it’s a little creepy I think it’s nice that these people aren’t alone when they pass. Maybe they’re not aware of his presence, however if you believe in souls then perhaps the departing soul give the kitty some scritchin’s as they leave and the kitty just really likes his soul scritchin’s so wants to be sure to be around at that time.