Oscar - The cat that predicts death

[ciscop]

what do you think about this?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/felines-fat ... -n81a.html


althought i have read about some dogs capable of sniffing cancer (not sure it was prooved tought)
this is the first time that i read about a cat predicting death

what do you think is happening?

[NinjaPuppy]

I can give one theory to that article. I worked in a nursing home many years ago. There were nurses and workers who could predict some patients deaths by smell. One day while this person was wheeling a patient around, she mentioned that the woman would die before the weekend was over. The patient seemed to be perfectly fine at the time of prediction so I asked why. She said that the patient had 'the smell of death' coming off the top of her head.

Yes, there was a mild odor that could be detected by my nose but I couldn't place it. The patient died two days later.

So if someone with years of experience and a human nose can smell something that indicates death, I'm sure that an animal can.

[ProfWag]

Ninja's right I think. The theory is that the body emits a different odor just prior to death which is what I think is happening (and I believe the Docs in the Nursing Home think that as well.)

[NinjaPuppy]

Now if that cat could predict that you were going to be hit by a bus from smell, we've got something.

[ProfWag]

[ciscop]

mmmm...
thats an interesting theory

is there any study or any other kind of article of this smell?
or is it just perception on both of your parts?

i know old people smell funny
im not debating that
is just the... a smell prior of dying..
thats does tick me the wrong way.. is that a fact? i guess that could be
just have never heard it,
im honestly asking

[NinjaPuppy]

I don't find it so hard to believe that as our body starts to shut down it could give off gasses that can be detected by our noses. If you cut yourself and it gets infected, the infection gives off an odor. Heck, if you eat a lot of garlic it can come out of your pores for days. I don't find it odd that you might give off gasses once your internal organs begin to shut down.

[ProfWag]

According to the below website, it's been confirmed that skin cancer gives off a specific odor. I'm not trained enough on anything medical to understand the smell of death, but I do think it's reasonable, especially given that domestic pets are said to have noses 300 to 600 times more sensitive than humans.
http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2008/ ... in-cancer/

[ciscop]

i guess i learned something today
i never knew about this smell of death
thats quite interesting

thanks

[ProfWag]

After I wrote that, I was got to thinking while I was sitting around doing terrible things to my cat with a fork. You know, when we die, our body starts to deteriorate immediately. Fortunately, I haven't had to smell a decomposing corpse very often, but I know it can be horrible. And I was thinking, I remember right before my Mom died that the nurses told us that her organs are shutting down and how it would not be much longer. So, if body organs shut down prior to death, then it seems reasonable that the decomposing organs would emit an odor prior to death as well. Anyway, just something I was thinking about from someone who's not a doctor. I don't believe I want to conduct any experiments on that though.

[NinjaPuppy]

[ProfWag]

[Nostradamus]