Scientist profiles cat who predicts death
Dr. David Dosa sought to understand Oscar the cat’s unexplainable talent
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island — The scientist in Dr. David Dosa was skeptical when first told that Oscar, an aloof cat kept by a nursing home, regularly predicted patients' deaths by snuggling alongside them in their final hours.
Dosa's doubts eroded after he and his colleagues tallied about 50 correct calls made by Oscar over five years, a process he explains in a book released this week, "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat." The feline's bizarre talent astounds Dosa, but he finds Oscar's real worth in his fierce insistence on being present when others turn away from life's most uncomfortable topic: death.
"People actually were taking great comfort in this idea, that this animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass," Dosa said. "He was there when they couldn't be."
Dosa, 37, a geriatrician and professor at Brown University, works on the third floor of the Steere House, which treats patients with severe dementia. It's usually the last stop for people so ill they cannot speak, recognize their spouses and spend their days lost in fragments of memory.

STEW MILNE / ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this July 23, 2007 file photo, Oscar, a hospice cat with an uncanny knack for predicting
when nursing home patients are going to die, walks past an activity room at the
Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I.
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