Winter F00l

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Predicting the death of a patient, even an elderly, demented one, is an inexact science, even for a doctor with decades of medical experience.

But a cat in a Providence, R.I., nursing home, an animal shelter refugee named Oscar, seems to have a sixth sense about when residents in the home's advanced dementia unit are about to pass away. And his actions can sometimes
help alert the staff to notify family members in time for them to get to the nursing home to tell their loved ones goodbye.

Three animal behavior experts say the explanation about Oscar sensing a smell associated with dying is a plausible one.

"I suspect he is smelling some chemical released just before dying," says Margie Scherk, DVM, president of the American Association of Feline Practitioners, an organization devoted to improving the health and well-being of cats, and a veterinarian in Vancouver, British Columbia. "Cats can smell a lot of things we can't," she says. "And cats can certainly detect
illness."

"Cats have a superb sense of smell," adds Jill Goldman, PhD, a certified applied animal behaviorist in Laguna Beach, Calif. In Oscar's case, she says, keeping a dying resident company may also be learned behavior. "There has been ample opportunity for him to make an association between 'that' smell [and death]," she says.

While the sense of smell may be one explanation, there could be another, says Daniel Estep, PhD, a certified applied animal behaviorist in Littleton, Colo. "One of the things that happen with people who are dying is that they are not moving around much. Maybe the cat is picking up on the fact that the person on the bed is very quiet. It may not be smell or sounds, but just the lack of movement."

原文：CBS News