Oscar, the killer cat

A new book intends to set the record straight on an unfairly tarnished reputation — that of Oscar the Cat. According to a Reuters wire story, Oscar “adopted as a kitten from an animal shelter to be raised as a therapy cat at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island,” and “When Oscar was about six months old the staff noticed that he would curl up to sleep with patients who were about to die. So far he has accurately predicted about 50 deaths.”

But, says the report, “When doctors and staff realized that a cat … could sense when someone was going to die,” Oscar came to be regarded as “a furry grim reaper or four-legged angel of death.”

Dr. David Dosa says he has written Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat to rehabilitate Oscar’s reputation, although he admits the book is more about understanding “what family members go through at the end of life when they are dealing with a loved one in a nursing home or with advanced dementia. Perhaps the book is a little more approachable because there is a cat in it. We really know so little about nursing homes, and this tries to get rid of this myth that they are horrid factories where people go to die.”

And Dosa says he doesn’t think Oscar has any special gift. “Animals are remarkable in their ability to see things we don’t, be it the dog that sniffs out cancer or the fish that predicts earthquakes. Animals know when they are needed.”

However, there was that one time …. “when staff were convinced of the imminent death of one patient but Oscar refused to sit with that person, choosing instead to be on the bed of another patient down the hallway. Oscar proved to be right. The person he sat with died first, taking staff on the ward by surprise.”

Coincidence? We don’t think so.