8 thoughts on “Death Cat”

  1. I’ll go with this cat does know when people are dying and I doubt watching the nurses had anything to do with it. Jim’s cat Brutus always knew when someone was sick. He’d sit on the bed about a foot from your head and stare at you. He wouldn’t leave the bed as long as you were in it and he would watch over you without fail (and without sleep) for as long as it took. I have no idea what the cat was thinking — if this person doesn’t make it I’ll be here, if I watch over this person they’ll get better, etc.

  2. I think there is a ‘tending’ gene in mammals which is expressed to a greater or larger degree depending on nurture and where you are in your life cycle. I think females get a bigger whack of it than males, but there’s so much xeno-estrogen floating around the environment these days that when it comes to sex-linked behaviour, it seems all bets are off.

  3. Of course this doesn’t seem strange to me at all, and all the documentation in the world will not actually uncover what Oscar is responding to. Dogs are being trained to sniff out cancers, that cannot be detected with modern medical apparatus and testing. It started with one dog showing the capability (and a human observing), and now there is more than one place in the US where you can get a diagnosis by dog.
    I certainly observed my dogs knowing when one of them was sick and or dying. Didn’t use them on people that way. I also saw them point out illness in visitors’ dogs here.

  4. More and more, I’m beginning to think that men and women do think and feel along similar lines, i.e. that Dad with a sick child is just as concerned as the mother, BUT men deal with these feelings and communicate them in entirely different ways.

    This I base on the men I’ve either dated and/or married (2). Although we argue, in the end we discover we are on the same side, fighting the same battle in different ways. It drives me crazy when Jim or Spence don’t display that they are worried about Jenny AND it drives them crazy that I won’t stop displaying my worrying about Jenny. After all, they say “What good does worrying do? It doesn’t fix anything.” And I say, “If you’re not worrying then how are you supposed to come up with a solution and a plan of action.”

    Allegra I’m not taking away from your “Reproductive Fitness” theory, I believe this is true BUT when it comes down to caring about loved ones, men and women both do it — it just takes an entirely different form.

    Chipper, I think dogs, cats & humans are CAPABLE of sensing illness and impending death BUT humans are so many, many generations removed from living in our original natural habitat that we’ve lost many of our natural instincts AND whatever natural instincts we were born with is educated out of us in our modern society. I think, dogs and cats have retained more of their instincts than humans.

  5. I think dogs not only sniff illness, but more that they actually communicate with humans through thoughts, especially pictures, which they can understand more readily than words. It is possible for dogs to learn 2 languages, but it is more thoughts that they register on. Because cats have a tendency to behave in a contrary fashion this is not as readily evident with them. Dogs also respond to physical signals, so it is difficult mfor some people to tell whether it is word or action that they actually respond to.

    Worry, Debbie, is the worst sin. Sorry, I give my mom heck for it all the time. Better to calm oneself and plan. I too have been guilty of worry, mostly if I am not well or overwhelmed. There is a difference between worry and awareness. To walk around blissfully ignorant is not the opposite of worry.

    In dealing with men, something I have observed is that men fight (argue) and then behave as though nothing happened. Watch a man and a man fight sometime (verbal or physical) Women, on the other hand, want to figure out where things went wrong. Same holds for 2 women. If they pretend after ward that nothing ever led them to disagree, they will continue to disagree.
    I find men want to fight with me often as though I were a man, and because I am a woman I am supposed to understand that.

  6. To me worrying is part of the planning process. Also, after time most men do figure out the woman they love and begin work around it — they know when to put up and when to shut up. I think this strategy is used by men to avoid getting into fights or WORSE having their wife break down and start crying!!

  7. Oh, now I understand what I have been doing wrong. Besides that the fact that I have never been a wife, I haven’t cried Strategically for over 25 years. In spite of not having been a wife I have had 3 years, 4, 9, and 5 with one man at a time.
    For some reason I thought that crying was an ineffective way to resolve differences.
    Think I will go find a dog to exchange thought pictures with.

  8. Well, yes I guess some women use crying as a ploy, I did’nt think of that. Personally, I’m not much of a cryer, but if it starts to happen, I am powerless to do anything about it. Unless, of course, you include me locking myself in the bathroom until it’s over.

    I’m still trying to wrap my head around dogs exchanging thought pictures with humans. We are blessed with a handsome, intelligent and loving dog who is a cross between a Belgian Shepherd and Rough Collie — we can’t figure out where his webbed feet came from though. When I have some time, I will see if I can get anything going with Sumer.

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