Also known as the Angel of Death, Oscar is a singularly unfriendly nursing home cat who somehow developed the habit of only cuddling up with the nearly departed. At this signal from the Grim Reaper of Cats, the staff alerted family, enabling them to say their goodbyes. Oscar's predictions have set the standard for medical practitioners, who still can't hope to match him. How does he do it? And, more intriguingly, why? What does Oscar want, and by extension, what do cats want?
Want to follow up on our sources or watch any of the videos we mention? Go to ThisAnimalLIfe.com and click on Show Notes.
References:
Bradbury, Ray. “The Veldt,” The Illustrated Man, Doubleday, 1951.
Cat image (left) by Tambako the Jaguar on Flikr Creative Commons, 2010.
De Waal, Frans. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? WW Norton, 2016.
DiChario, Nick. "I am Mr. Baxter," This Animal Life, 2021.
Dohen, Kathleen. “Cat’s ‘Sixth Sense’ Predicting Death.” Fetch by WebMD, July 25, 2007.
Dosa, David, interviewed by Carol Kaufmann. “An Angel With Whiskers,” AARP Bulletin, July 10, 2010.
Dosa, David, interviewed by Richard Schlesinger. “Eye to Eye: Oscar The Cat,” CBS News. July 27, 2007.
David Dosa, Making Rounds with Oscar (The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat) Hatchette Books, 2009.
Dosa, David, featured in “Making Rounds With Oscar,” The Rhode Show, WPRI, YouTube, February 8, 2010.
Eveleth, Rose. “Does This Cat Know When You’re Going to Die?” Smithsonian Magazine. September 20, 2012.
Hearne, Vicki. “What It Is About Cats.” Adam’s Task Calling Animals By Name. Skyhorse, 1986.
“Oscar the cat, Dr. Dosa, his new book, and the hazards of meeting the press,” The Providence Journal.
Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?” [Wikipedia] The Philosophical Review. 83 (4), 1974.
“Oscar, the Nursing Home Cat Can Feel When People Are About to Die” by Spooky, Oddity Central. November 19, 2014.
Szawarski, Piotr. “Classic cases revisited: Oscar the cat and predicting death,” National Center for Biotechnology Information. November 17, 2016.
Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. The Hidden Life of Dogs. Orion Publishing, 2003.
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