Nursing home cat predicts Death(s)!!

[fuelair]

Cat curls up on resident, resident dies in hours!:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959718/?GT1=10150

MSNBC says so!:D :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :jaw-dropp :rolleyes:

[Katana]

I saw this story, too.

All I have to say is: Correlation or causation?

[Keep in mind, I'm a big fan of cats.]

[articulett]

Cat curls up on resident, resident dies in hours!:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959718/?GT1=10150

MSNBC says so!:D :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :jaw-dropp :rolleyes:

Nursing home cat... kills old people by smothering them...

[bjb]

About seven years ago, I saw pretty much the same thing on a Nature episode about cats. It was a different cat, though, but he showed up in a patient's room shortly before they died.

[firecoins]

the cat is an angel of death!!!

[Tipush]

Maybe the cat has some illness that healthy, strong, people aren't sesitive to?

I am also a big fan of cats, I have a cats and |I think I am still alive.

[Normal Dude]

I predict a malpractice suit against the cat.

It is painfully obvious the cat is practicing without a license.

[articulett]

I predict a malpractice suit against the cat.

It is painfully obvious the cat is practicing without a license.

What's the Kitty Kevorkian's name?

Maybe she just likes the sickest person because they move around less... but then they keep dying, so she has to go find another immobile person...

[Normal Dude]

[QUOTE=articulett;2802882]What's the Kitty Kevorkian's name?
[QUOTE]

I think Dr. Jingles sounds good... :D

On a more serious note, I have yet to complete my physiology degree, but is it possible that a body in the last stages of a terminal illness might smell different? Otherwise I could chalk it up to confirmation bias. Plus it would be interesting to know how many die on average in a week there.

[SezMe]

Reminds me of a joke I just got in email today. Shortened version from memory is:

Daddy says goodnight prayers with his daughter: "God bless Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and goodbye Grandpa" Dad thinks nothing of it but is a bit disoriented when Grandpa dies the next day.

A week later at goodnight prayers, his daughter says, "God bless Mommy and Daddy and goodbye Grandma". Dad passes it off as insignificant but is taken aback when Grandma dies the next day.

So a week later at goodnight prayers, his daughter says, "God bless Mommy and goodbye Daddy" the dad is really freaked out.

The next day he takes every care he can to stay safe and, at the end of the day at the office, decides to stay right there until after midnight. He does - alive - and arrives home a mess and tells his wife he had an awful day. She says, "Me too. My golf instructor died suddenly today."

[godless dave]

LOL at that joke.


There are already dogs who can detect an epileptic seizure before it starts, so this doesn't seem all that amazing to me. There doesn't need to be any magic involved; cats can smell a lot better than we can, and I speculate that the cat is smelling a biological change in the soon-to-be-deceased residents.

(First post, thanks for having me)

[articulett]

It might well be a smell thing... dying is a process... and it might have served carnivorous ancestry of the kitty well to hang around big things that were about to die... You can't hunt big things, but if you wait around, they do die... I've seen cats and dogs roll on dead birds and mice...

That was a good joke, sez

[strathmeyer]

Cat prefers to sleep in quiet places with little outside movement, film at eleven!

[SezMe]

LOL at that joke.

(First post, thanks for having me)
Hey, anybody who will laugh at my jokes is certainly welcome here.

So WELCOME DAVE. May your laughometer and horsepockeyometer serve you well.

[Leif Roar]

Stupid cat. After more than 20 tries, you'd have thought he'd have realised that nobody buys his "great feline hunter" act.

[bourgeois_rage]

While I'm sure there is a rational explanation for this, I'd like to see better data than just "he did it 25 times." How many misses, how long of a period was this observed over?

Here Kitty kitty...

[Buckaroo]

And how about all the times the cat curled up with patients who DIDN'T die? Are they seriously saying that cat only hangs out with people who are about to croak?

Heard this on All Things Considered this morning. I'm disappointed in what I thought was a reasonably responsible news outlet.

[Starthinker]

Don't they realize that if they get rid of the cat people will stop dying?

[Buckaroo]

He's an awfully cute kitty to be a bringer of oblivion....

[brodski]

Has anyone seen NWO kitty latley?

[Drudgewire]

He's an awfully cute kitty to be a bringer of oblivion....
Oh sure... when he's wearing his innocuous disguise. Not quite so cuddly when he's reporting to the boss.

http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/demoncat.jpg

:eek:

[brodski]

Oh sure... when he's wearing his innocuous disguise. Not quite so cuddly when he's reporting to the boss.

http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/demoncat.jpg

:eek:

Good lord, the cat of death reports to a little red x? Who will save us? Run!!!!


;)

[Drudgewire]

Good lord, the cat of death reports to a little red x? Who will save us? Run!!!!


;)
I cleared the cache to make sure it was working. :(

If it's still not showing up:

http://i19.tinypic.com/61uevbk.jpg

[fuelair]

Oscar is name - and this also in New England Journal of medicine: today thread - http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=88266

[Skeptic Guy]

The cat lives in a nursing home. I would imagine that it is not too unusual to have a patient die there. Now move Oscar to pediatric hospital, where a fewer percentage of the patients are expected to die, and see what happens.

A new superstition, "Take your medicine or Oscar, the Kitty of Death, will come a callin'.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think Dr. Jingles sounds good...
Uh oh. We have a cat named Mr. Jingles and he naps with me all the time. I thought I felt particularly restful during those naps ...

~~ Paul

[Bob Klase]

And how about all the times the cat curled up with patients who DIDN'T die?

And how many patients died without the cat curling up with them?

[Bob Klase]

[QUOTE]The 2-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The facility treats people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses.[\QUOTE]

So who exactly adopted the cat? Does it belong to a patient or the staff? Is it normal to allow staff pets to live in a nursing home, or to with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses living in a nursing home to have pets there?

[Skeptic Guy]

From CNN.com

This sounds like they are really looking for something here. The cat was in the room one time, nothing happened (though at another point in the article they said it is typically a four hour window between Oscar's visit and the death of the patient) came back around 8-hours later and then the patient died. I wonder how many times that happened before?


She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room, though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.

[Alice Shortcake]

Why the hell is Oscar wasting his time in a nursing home when he could be hiring himself out as a professional assassin?

[BPSCG]

I say confirmation bias. Where does the cat hang around when nobody's ready to die? Does he sleep in the janitor closet for days on end until someone is ready to snuff it? Cats prowl, they snoop everywhere; are we supposed to believe this one avoids rooms where nobody's dying?

Did the story say how many people have died even though the cat did not visit them?

[Psi Baba]

This article
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/aging/articles/2007/07/26/with_a_purr_death_comes_on_little_cat_feet/
linked to in one of the other threads seems to contain more information than some of the others.

BTW, I note that the place is in Providence RI, home of HP Lovecraft. He loved cats and would have found this story fascinating (heck it almost sounds like one of his stories!).

[Aoidoi]

I wonder how many of those patients were allergic to cats.

[ObscureReferenceMan]

LOCATS!

I'm in yur nursin homz stealin your breths...




(Sorry, I have no cat pictures.)

[Skeptic Guy]

I was thinking the same thing. It would be a perfect excuse for a law suit if the patient was allergic.

[articulett]

I wonder how many of those patients were allergic to cats.

Or if the cat has toxoplasmosis...

[articulett]

Why the hell is Oscar wasting his time in a nursing home when he could be hiring himself out as a professional assassin?

The perks are better in a nursing home... less effort... and maybe dying people have a fishy smell...

Cats are lazy and drawn to gamey smells.

[bridgy]

She was convinced of Oscar's talent when he made his 13th correct call. While observing one patient, Teno said she noticed the woman wasn't eating, was breathing with difficulty and that her legs had a bluish tinge, signs that often mean death is near.

Oscar wouldn't stay inside the room, though, so Teno thought his streak was broken. Instead, it turned out the doctor's prediction was roughly 10 hours too early. Sure enough, during the patient's final two hours, nurses told Teno that Oscar joined the woman at her bedside.
Heard an interview with a female doctor from the nursing home on BBC Radio 4's "PM" program this evening and 2 things stood out from what she said.

Firstly with regards to the above story from CNN quoted by Skeptic Guy, she said they were actively putting the cat in the room of the dying patient at this time (I think after noticing a few initial "hits") - note how she says the cat wouldn't "stay" in the room, rather than it wouldn't "go" in the room. Somewhat improves the odds don't you think!

Secondly she suggested the cat might be copying or picking up on the behaviour of the staff in some way, who would gather around the patient during their final hours. Perhaps it liked to be sociable and has someone else has said, naturally chose the lap of the most inactive person?

[supercorgi]

So who exactly adopted the cat? Does it belong to a patient or the staff? Is it normal to allow staff pets to live in a nursing home, or to with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and other illnesses living in a nursing home to have pets there?

It's not that unusual. The nursing home that my dad was in for 6 years had a cat. They also frequently had people come in with animals (there was even a lady that brought a wallabee in!). My dog is certified as a therapy dog so I could do hospital and nursing home visits with him although I haven't yet.

[articulett]

It's not that unusual. The nursing home that my dad was in for 6 years had a cat. They also frequently had people come in with animals (there was even a lady that brought a wallabee in!). My dog is certified as a therapy dog so I could do hospital and nursing home visits with him although I haven't yet.

How does the dog get certified?

[RSLancastr]

..

[Tamarillicent]

My avatar thinks that is funny.

[Brown]

I've read two stories about this feline, and I see the story being touted at a number of news sites. The stories I've read, I'm pleased to say, did not report, or even suggest, any mystical forces at work. At most, they suggested that the animal was sensitive to something which humans are not sensitive to, possibly a scent. Some suggested that the animal was attracted to things other than death, such as heating elements.

It would not be surprising to find that, shortly before death, there is a spike in relative concentrations of certain bodily proteins, due to protein production or protein denaturing. Protein anomalies are known to accompany a number of medical conditions (including tissue necrosis, i.e., tissue death), and they can often be detected by simple blood tests. Some protein anomalies can even be detected by scent, and some can even be detected by the human nose.

What does this tell us? Not much, except that there is good reason not to jump to the conclusion that there are any "forces unknown to science" are at work here.

[CardZeus]

"Thomas Graves, a feline expert from the University of Illinois, told the BBC: "Cats often can sense when their owners are sick or when another animal is sick.

"They can sense when the weather will change, they're famous for being sensitive to premonitions of earthquakes."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6917113.stm

[Ranb]

MSNBC just had a woman named Patric Ryan on their show who claims to be a pet psychic. Her claims that she gets feelings, visions and dialogs with pets went unchallenged by the talking head on the tube.

Ranb

[UnrepentantSinner]

I thought the story about Oscar was very sweet, especially the segment I saw on the NBC Nightly News. It didn't suggest any woo, just that he might be able to sense things and he goes in to be with them. An ancillary effect is that he provides comfort for the families of patients in their final hours, and is someone there for patients who have no family.

[Miss Whiplash]

The fools!! Didn't they realize cats suck the breath of sleeping people and kill them? And if the cat jumps over a corpse, the corpse comes a vampire. However would the nursing home explain that? :D

[Schmitt.]

The NEJM article about this is hilarious, and obviously written by a crazy cat lover. It's here (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/328).

I like how much this cat obviously hates people and can only stand us when it gets to watch our eventual passage from this vorpal coil.

[articulett]

..

Maybe he can pay a visit to Sylvia...
it seems they could have a psychic connection... she talks to dead people he makes people dead.

[steve s]

It didn't suggest any woo, just that he might be able to sense things and he goes in to be with them.

One thing I haven't seen in any of the stories is whether this might just be a case of confirmation bias. Everyone is looking for explanations, but there may be nothing to explain.

ETA: Sorry, didn't notice that Noraml Dude already brought this up. Gotta read through the thread more carefully.

Steve S.

[malbui]

How does the dog get certified?


Usual way: takes the exams, fills in the application forms, pays the subscription.

[Tamarillicent]

I like how much this cat obviously hates people and can only stand us when it gets to watch our eventual passage from this vorpal coil.


It is true! Cat's DO hate us! This (http://www.mycathatesyou.com) website is proof.

[Scott Haley]

The staff says that the cat signals that someone is about to die, and they call in patient's family to be with him when it does. Shouldn't they call emergency services? If you think that I'm about to die, don't call my mom to hold my hand, get me to an emergency room!

--Scott

[sackett]

... they suggested that the animal was sensitive to ...possibly a scent.... shortly before death, there is a spike in relative concentrations of certain bodily proteins, due to protein production or protein denaturing. ...tissue necrosis, i.e., tissue death.... Some protein anomalies can even be detected by scent, and some can even be detected by the human nose.

What does this tell us?...

It tells us that the cat smells something dying and wants to be there for the carrion.

As a child, I sometimes "smelt death" on old people who soon died, hence my bolding above. I've lost the ability to do that, or maybe modern medicine masks the odor. Either way, I'm glad.

Cheerfully gruesome, innit?

ETA: My cat Velcro (the name's no accident) is ALWAYS on the bed with me. As soon as I get horizontal, leap! and she's kneading my belly to make a nest. But -- this may sound strange -- I haven't died yet. Amazing.

[Father Dagon]

I thought the story about Oscar was very sweet, especially the segment I saw on the NBC Nightly News. It didn't suggest any woo, just that he might be able to sense things and he goes in to be with them. An ancillary effect is that he provides comfort for the families of patients in their final hours, and is someone there for patients who have no family.You beat me to it. More pets at nursing homes and suffering and death won't be so bad.

[Hindmost]

Modern medicine is great. But I am never getting cat scan again.

glenn:boxedin:

[BPSCG]

Washington Post is having an online chat starting at 2:30 pm eastern time US, with a Brown University professor of medicine (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/07/27/DI2007072700984.html). I've already submitted a question - a less-rude version of my post #31 here.

[Big Les]

The fools!! Didn't they realize cats suck the breath of sleeping people and kill them? And if the cat jumps over a corpse, the corpse comes a vampire. However would the nursing home explain that? :D

You've been reading Monty Summers again, haven't you? Bad The Vampire, on your rug!

[Skeptic Ginger]

Never once in the story do they say what the cat is doing when not predicting death. Doesn't it ever sit on anyone else's beds?

Such a crappy story, I sincerely doubt there is anything to it but the staff member's selective attention and memory and a gullible reporter who never heard of selective attention.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I say confirmation bias. Where does the cat hang around when nobody's ready to die? Does he sleep in the janitor closet for days on end until someone is ready to snuff it? Cats prowl, they snoop everywhere; are we supposed to believe this one avoids rooms where nobody's dying?

Did the story say how many people have died even though the cat did not visit them?You read my mind, before I posted my thoughts. ;)

Guess we all saw through this one right away. I'm glad you submitted your question. I predict there will be hundreds asking the same thing.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Washington Post is having an online chat starting at 2:30 pm eastern time US, with a Brown University professor of medicine (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/07/27/DI2007072700984.html). I've already submitted a question - a less-rude version of my post #31 here.
So much for evidence based medicine. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I decided we need a rating system. I give this story 5 :rolleyes:

Here are some excerpts from the online chat that pretty much typify the exchange.Montgomery Village, Md.: Does Oscar ever spend any significant amount of time curled up with somebody who isn't about to die?

Dr. David M. Dosa: Not generally, no--He keeps to himself and avoids staff/ more robust residents on the unitHmmm, avoids those "more robust residents" does he. So maybe he likes a warm bed with no one alert enough to bother him?

Washington, D.C.: This is so fascinating -- thanks for your moving piece in the NEJM. It seems probable that there IS some sort of scent, etc., that signals imminent death; however, what do you think makes Oscar or other animals attracted to this? It seemed in the article that he wasn't particularly interested in cuddling up next to patients unless they were about to pass away.

Dr. David M. Dosa: Some people note that the body releases a sweet smell when dieing occurs. I've heard some staff call it that. Maybe that is it---maybe it is behavioral---certainly Oscar is in an environment where he gets experience predicting death.

Southern Maryland: It has been known for a long time that dogs and cats can predict earthquakes. It's really a great human interest story about Oscar and only hope my cat is still around to cuddle next to me when I'm dying!

FWIW, my sister and her husband swam with dolphins in Florida. The naturalists working there said the dolphins get freaked out with pregnant women in the water. They can hear the heartbeat of the fetus but only see one person in the water with them.

Dr. David M. Dosa: Animals across the board are amazing--I think we dismiss their skills too often----I had a dog growing up and the dog knew we were going on vacation days in advance. They are amazing at taking and analyzing non-verbal cues.

McLean, Va.: Have any veterinary schools expressed interest in researching Oscar's ability?

Dr. David M. Dosa: Not as of yet--I'm sure that we will hear from them soonNot one person seemed to be very skeptical. No one asked if they did any systematic data collection whatsoever. And people obviously believe in the unsupported claims about animals having magical senses.

[RSLancastr]

I wanted it to go like this:

Montgomery Village, Md.: Does Oscar ever spend any significant amount of time curled up with somebody who isn't about to die?

Dr. David M. Dosa: Not generally, no-- Altohugh he is sitting next to me as I type this, which is quite un,mn,.zmxcvbccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc...

[RSLancastr]

Hey!!! I did it first!!!

http://www.lolcats.com/view/8888/

[Safe-Keeper]

Hasn't anyone else than me wondered how many people that cat's killed by means of reversed placebo? 'Oh noez, the death cat, I'm gonna die [dies]!'. Splendid system, that, they may just as well dress it up as the grim reaper.

[Juliette]

Interesting that no one has said much about Oscar being the beneficiary on those patient's life insurance policies.

Oh yeah, like that never crossed anyone else's mind.

[EvilSmurf]

I found another photo of Oscar, I think this explains it all:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/4871/oscar4yv8.jpg

[Skeptic Ginger]

Media Matters in their email updates noted how much time the media paid to this story compared to obviously more important ones.

[Gregoire]

Washington Post is having an online chat starting at 2:30 pm eastern time US, with a Brown University professor of medicine (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/07/27/DI2007072700984.html). I've already submitted a question - a less-rude version of my post #31 here.

How did the online chat go?

Oh, wait. I see you have provided the transcript. Thanks!

[AmyWilson]

That's because cats are psychic, as are people.

[Normal Dude]

...

Oh, I'm sorry, was that the part where I was supposed to nod my head?

[Gregoire]

I'm sorry, but reading the transcript leaves me still unconvinced. I don't see Dr. Dosa analyzing the data as say he would when evaluating a new medication. For example:

<<Montgomery Village, Md.: Does Oscar ever spend any significant amount of time curled up with somebody who isn't about to die?

Dr. David M. Dosa: Not generally, no--He keeps to himself and avoids staff/ more robust residents on the unit>>

That to me appears to be a vague answer to an obvious question. Does this mean the cat does so on occasion? What percentage of the time? Has anyone actually followed the cat around?

This reminds me of a 20/20 episode where people were sure their dog could predict when they were about to arrive home because he was always waiting for them. But subsequent study with an actual camera revealed the dog went to the front door frequently throughout the day.

[Normal Dude]

Gregoire,

I have already seen them state in other interviews that they do not intend to analyze the cat's behaviors themselves.

[Magic 9-Ball]

Has anyone actually followed the cat around?

Ever tried to follow a cat? Sleeps 90% of the time, then disappears. Outdoors, it's impossible, unless you carry tuna fish with you.

I think this cat may be running around nearby neighborhoods killing people when bored of killing the Nursing Home residents.
Perhaps they could investigate any correlation between lulls in deaths at the home, and increases in deaths in the surrounding area.

[Gregoire]

Gregoire,

I have already seen them state in other interviews that they do not intend to analyze the cat's behaviors themselves.


Thanks for the information.:)

I am not surprised.

[Gregoire]

Has anyone actually followed the cat around?

Ever tried to follow a cat? Sleeps 90% of the time, then disappears. Outdoors, it's impossible, unless you carry tuna fish with you.

I think this cat may be running around nearby neighborhoods killing people when bored of killing the Nursing Home residents.
Perhaps they could investigate any correlation between lulls in deaths at the home, and increases in deaths in the surrounding area.

LOL:)

or maybe just a GPS tracking device!;)

[negativ]

I like how much this cat obviously hates people and can only stand us when it gets to watch our eventual passage from this vorpal coil.

Exactly.

"Cordial greetings, old person. I'm a cat. You may have heard of my kind. We are generally quiet, soft, and warm. We tread lightly. My kind is generally self-sufficient and we ask relatively little of you.

"It is true, isn't it, that dogs are much more akin to you than we are. They revel in your companionship, eagerly accept guidance and instruction from you, and many will steadfastly do their utmost to defend your homes and your family from danger, even at great peril to themselves.

"But that's not what you need just now, is it? You are tired and sick, and you are no more capable of standing up out of this bed than I am of piloting the next space shuttle launch. What you need right now is a quiet companion who will simply be with you for a little while. You want to feel the pulse of life against your dying body, and you might prefer that come from a creature who will demand nothing of you, not even an acknowledgment.

"So that is why I have come. I offer nothing but unconditional quiet companionship in your last moments. Unlike your closest loved-ones, I will not hover over you as you slip away, wailing and moaning and trying cruelly to shake you back to consciousness. Unlike your caretakers, I will not puncture you with needles, pound on your chest, jolt you with electric current, or otherwise subject you to futile indignities so that they might feel as though "they tried". I will simply be with you, and all I ask in return is that you let me watch you die."

[baron]

It wasn't a cat, it was a lion. That explains the deaths, although I would have expected the headless nature of the deceased to raise a few eyebrows.

This is just a load of old silliness. Besides, isn't there an old wives' tale that a cat will always vacate the house before a death in the family?

[BPSCG]

My question to the online chat asked:
Where the cat hung around when someone wasn't dying;
Did he ever go into the rooms of people who were not dying?They didn't post my question, but the MD said that Oscar had been in the room of every single person who had died since he'd been there - 25 people.

That may sound significant, but in the absence of any information about where he is when people aren't dying, and whether or not he also goes into the rooms of people who aren't dying, it really isn't. He could be visiting everyone, every day, for all we know - the chat didn't say.

For the record, I would not be surprised if the cat does sense something that attracts him - the stillness and quiet in the room, or maybe when people's systems are shutting down, they give off some faint scent that cats are attracted to (BTW, it's a common misconception that cats have an excellent sense of smell - they don't; as Old Possum says (http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/Classes/Summer97/SemGS/WebLex/OldPossum/oldpossumlex/node15.html#SECTION000150000000000000000), "A cat is not a dog."). If it is established that this phenomenon is not the result of chance, then there's obviously a natural explanation - not a supernatural one.

And despite what some of the silly romantics in the chat think, Oscar is not there with the idea of comforting the dying. He's a cat, and really doesn't care a feather whether someone lives or dies, and could almost certainly be seduced into abandoning his death-watch by an open can of Fancy Feast Salmon and Whitefish.

[Magic 9-Ball]

[QUOTE=baron;2810451]It wasn't a cat, it was a lion. That explains the deaths, although I would have expected the headless nature of the deceased to raise a few eyebrows.QUOTE]

A lion IS a cat! :)

Now I thought the headless part was just an old prank played by the orderlies. Goes to show you you learn something every day here.

[VBU2C5]

Hmmm, if there is any validity to this story ( and there could be ) it most likely has to do with scent. I also saw the program, I believe it was a National Geographic episode about female prisoners training dogs. A certain dog who was well behaved would start to behave erratically and within 5 minutes the trainer would have a seizure. There are also dogs being trained to detect cancer in people through scent and their accuracy is supposed to be nearly perfect. Of course it could just be the cat shoots laser beams from its eyes and is killing people! Yes I know it's a crazy theory, but I've seen the picture!

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Media Matters in their email updates noted how much time the media paid to this story compared to obviously more important ones.

I does boggle the mind doesn't it? :boggled:

I mean, I have not heard anything about poor little Jon Binet in weeks now. :mad:

[TheAnachronism]

Now I am picturing in my head a chaotic scene of elderly people stampeding through the hallways of said nursing home, taking out all in their path, in a mad dash to get away from Oscar the Cat, desperate for just a little attention.

[Big Al]

AAAGH! THE DEATH-MOGGIE! THE PUSSY OF DOOM! THE FATAL FELINE. THE GRIM SLEEPER! I DON'T WANNA DIE! I DON'T WANNA...:eek:

Urrrgh! :yikes: :faint:

[Magic 9-Ball]

Perfect time for a slightly altered Python reference:

"Bring out your dead!"
"I'm not dead yet"
"He says he's not dead yet"
"Yes, he is"
"No, I'm not!"
"You'll be stone cold dead in a minute"
"I want to go for a walk..."

... in walks cat. Doomed man ends up in the cart.

[Scott Haley]

That would be the time to hire Confuse-A-Cat Ltd.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hmmm, if there is any validity to this story ( and there could be ) it most likely has to do with scent. I also saw the program, I believe it was a National Geographic episode about female prisoners training dogs. A certain dog who was well behaved would start to behave erratically and within 5 minutes the trainer would have a seizure. There are also dogs being trained to detect cancer in people through scent and their accuracy is supposed to be nearly perfect. Of course it could just be the cat shoots laser beams from its eyes and is killing people! Yes I know it's a crazy theory, but I've seen the picture!So you form an hypothesis and test it. Just speculating on the mechanism when the event has not really even been verified seems like a waste of time.

[Warge]

Exactly.

"Cordial greetings, old person. I'm a cat. You may have heard of my kind. We are generally quiet, soft, and warm. We tread lightly. My kind is generally self-sufficient and we ask relatively little of you.

"It is true, isn't it, that dogs are much more akin to you than we are. They revel in your companionship, eagerly accept guidance and instruction from you, and many will steadfastly do their utmost to defend your homes and your family from danger, even at great peril to themselves.

"But that's not what you need just now, is it? You are tired and sick, and you are no more capable of standing up out of this bed than I am of piloting the next space shuttle launch. What you need right now is a quiet companion who will simply be with you for a little while. You want to feel the pulse of life against your dying body, and you might prefer that come from a creature who will demand nothing of you, not even an acknowledgment.

"So that is why I have come. I offer nothing but unconditional quiet companionship in your last moments. Unlike your closest loved-ones, I will not hover over you as you slip away, wailing and moaning and trying cruelly to shake you back to consciousness. Unlike your caretakers, I will not puncture you with needles, pound on your chest, jolt you with electric current, or otherwise subject you to futile indignities so that they might feel as though "they tried". I will simply be with you, and all I ask in return is that you let me watch you die."


Oh dear, you scare me... ;)

[Gregoire]

When I first heard of the story, the reporter mentioned it had been written about in The New England Journal of Medicine. So I expected to see a detailed analysis of the "phenomenon" with the analytic rigor mentioned by many posters on this thread. But as we have seen, that was not the case and one poster has even reported that no one at the nursing home intends to study the situation any further. So the words "waste of time" used by another poster do seem very apropos here.

(This is why I joined the JREF forum. Where else could you go and discuss these sort of things and not offend a whole lot of people?)

[BPSCG]

Perfect time for a slightly altered Python reference:

"Bring out your dead!"
"I'm not dead yet"
"He says he's not dead yet"
"Yes, he is"
"No, I'm not!"
"You'll be stone cold dead in a minute"
"I want to go for a walk..."

... in walks cat. Doomed man ends up in the cart.Actually, if you watch the "Bring out your dead!" segment carefully, you'll note that there's someone in the background using a cat as a rug beater. With good reason, it would appear.

[Big Al]

Perhaps that's it!

"Bring out yer dead!"
"Here's one!"
"Ninepence."
"I'm not dead!"
"He say's he's not dead!"
<background>MEOWWL!
"There you are, the cat says he's dead."
"Fair enough. Can't argue with that. He'll be stone dead in a minute.
"I think I'll go for a walk... ooof!"
"See you Thursday."