Oscar was adopted as a kitten from an animal shelter and grew up in the third-floor end-stage dementia unit at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. The 41-bed unit treats people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses, most of whom are in the end stage of life and are generally unaware of their surroundings. Oscar was one of six cats adopted by Steere House, which bills itself as a “pet friendly” facility.
After about six months, the staff noticed that Oscar, just like the doctors and nurses, would make his own rounds. Oscar would sniff and observe patients, then curl up to sleep with certain ones. The patients he would sleep with often died within several hours of his arrival. One of the first cases involved a patient who had a blood clot in her leg that was ice cold at the time. Oscar wrapped his body around her leg and stayed until the woman died.In another instance, the doctor had made a determination of impending death based on the patient’s condition, while Oscar simply walked away, causing the doctor to believe that Oscar’s streak (12 at the time) had ended. However, it would be later discovered that the doctor’s prognosis was simply 10 hours too early: Oscar later visited the patient, who died two hours later.
Oscar’s accuracy led the staff to institute a new and unusual protocol: once he is discovered sleeping with a patient, staff will call family members to notify them of the patient’s (expected) impending death.
Most of the time the patient’s family has no issue with Oscar being present at the time of death. On those occasions when he is removed from the room at the family’s request, he is known to pace back and forth in front of the door and meow in protest. When present, Oscar will stay by the patient until they die, then after death will quietly leave the room.
i find this very interesting as this behavior seems common in many cats that reside in mental and nursing homes. Often sharing the bed of the soon to be deceased. In the ancient world cats were revered by many cultures, most famously Ancient Egypt, as guardians of the underworld, keepers of the gate of death, and sometimes even harbingers of death itself. This makes me wonder whether this behavior was observed during ancient times as well and perhaps prompted this belief and many practices surrounding it.
This is Enid, but we call her Ned
-Bek
Does she have blue eyes? Cat’s love boxes. Love them like crazy!
Housecat meets bobcat
“why are you trapped in there, tiny orange bobcat”
“BIG BRUDDER! BIG BRUDDER! WAKE UPS!”
“Hrmm…? Wait, wat!?”
“HAI!”
“Hey dude…whatchu doin’ on dat side of the glass?”
Different Sherlock portrayals as cats. Because I can.
House is the uncontrollable crazy cat.
Robert Downey Jr. cat is the flaunting type.
BBC Sherlock is the brooding cat.
Elementary Sherlock is the cuddly one.
Canon Sherlock is an awesome YouTube keyboard cat that Watson is always impressed by.
welp, can’t not reblog.
I love it when cats have this reaction to things, it’s just like, “HUMAN, EXPLAIN THIS BULLSHIT.”
“DAFUQ IS THIS SHIT? ANSWERS, NOW!!”
99 percent of the times I see a cat, I have to drop whatever the hell I’m doing and acknowledge that there’s a cat and say hi to the cat and walk up to the cat and try to pet the cat.
