Oscar the Cat Can Call Who’s Next to Kick Bucket

Oscar the feline roams through a nursing home for the elderly up in Providence, Rhode Island. Rumor has it that this cat has the ability to predict which one of the elderly residents is about to expire. When this cat comes into the room, jumps into the bed, and curls up next to someone, the staff waste little time trying to contact the next of kin. When Oscar pays his visit, the patient has only a handful of hours of life left. There’s some speculation that the cat senses some change in the patient, or that he can hear something change on some subsonic level. But whatever the reason, Oscar moves to comfort the patient in their last living hours.

Have these people ever owned a cat? I had a couple of cats and I loved them almost as much as I love dogs. But while dogs are generally the epitome of loyalty and faithfulness and would do almost anything to please, I know without a shadow of doubt that my cats would have eaten me at their earliest opportunity if they were big enough. I remember days when I’d walk into the apartment and I would see one of my cats crouching, getting ready to pounce, and then come to his senses as if he suddenly remembered that I outweighed him by about a buck seventy. Neither one of my cat would give me comfort if they found me on my deathbed. Chances are they would have jumped on the bed and start clawing me for not having food ready on time. So that theory about the cat offering comfort by his own free will is nothing but hogwash rooted in people’s child like desire to find some redeeming quality in these feline parasites.

More than likely, if Oscar is anything like the unfaithful kitties I’ve had a relationship with, there is a cause and reward effect going on with this cat and the expiring patients. Maybe he senses an elevated temperature or a subsonic humming emanating from a slowing heart or lungs or detects a sickly aroma that he finds appealing and the cat simply moves in to take advantage. Oscar probably thinks to himself something along the lines of, “Hey! This person’s about to croak. Better cuddle up so I can soak up some of that good heat before they buy the farm!”

The people who report this story find this behavior simply so amazing. Someone trying to be funny speculated that the cat finding people for the grim reaper. Someone else suggested that if their family member was at the home they’d make sure that Oscar wouldn’t have access to their family member’s room. I guess they’d keep Oscar away with a Glock. I can see the headlines now, “Oscar the wonder cat couldn’t predict own death”. None of these news reporting comedians guessed that Oscar may have been the grim reaper in disguise or that the cat was possessed by the grim reaper. If humans can be possessed why can’t animals?

But what is truly amazing is that people find the extraordinary behavior and senses of animals so difficult to believe. A trained Beagle sitting in the baggage claim area of an airport can detect a marijuana joint wrapped in plastic inside a suitcase in the cargo hold of an Airbus 380 right after it touches down on the runaway and before it can even begin to taxi to the terminal. A trained junkyard dogs dead asleep can be awaken in the middle of the night by the faint sound of someone climbing a chain linked fence on the other side of a giant industrial complex that would make the Boeing assembly plant in Seattle look like somebody’s quaint backyard.

People forget that when the tsunami hit that tore apart Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia, Asia, and Africa a couple years back, few animals suffered from the event. While humans were being washed out to sea by the wave load, animals detected the impending disaster and ran for higher ground. Animals that couldn’t even run all that well managed to sense the impending wave early enough to lumber their way out of danger.

When you take into consideration how much we depend on animals to protect our person, our family, and our property, it really isn’t much wonder that the senses of animals are far more sensitive than what people are willing to give them credit for. And what’s even more important is that animals rely on instincts and good ol’ animal intuition. Instincts, intuition, and common sense are running in seriously short supply in the typical world of the American. Nothing means anything unless it can be proven scientifically in a study or beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of peers.

For years people didn’t want to admit that cigarette smoke causes cancer until it could be irrefutably proven in a court of law. A lot of people had to die before the truth could be believed. And now people want to do the same thing with global warming and other mischiefs caused by people. As long as “scientist” are on the take to say whatever some corporate entity wants them to say then people will claim the issue is too hotly contested to come to any conclusion. Years from now when the weather becomes even more violent and erratic than it is today people will finally come clean and admit that maybe there is something to this global warming issue after all. Hopefully it won’t be too late.

Animals don’t wait for things to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt before they react. They don’t wait for a grand jury investigation to know what they see is obvious. Animals don’t need polls to convince their peers of things that should be obvious. People with eyes pretend not to see, people with ears pretend not to hear, and people with noses pretend not to smell the stench from, the problems of a culture that refuses to acknowledge the disparity of people who are subjected to a constant barrage of subjugation in any and all of its various forms. Animals are too honest creatures to fall for some manipulation.

Even though Oscar may be a selfish critter he’s an honest one. He is in tuned with nature enough to have a reasonably good idea when someone is about to expire. It’s not rocket science. It’s just a cat that knows how to pay attention to its environment. More people should learn from his example. Just don’t let him sleep in your room at night.