Oscar the Death Kitty
by Giulianna LamannaSome years back, I went with my mother to the Catskill Animal Sanctuary, a place that provided a home for abused and mistreated farm animals. There, founder Kathy Stevens introduced us to an extraordinary ram named Rambo (of course). “Rambo, a majestic Jacob sheep, was one of 17 large animals packed into a single stall, fed with occasional moldy bagels, carcasses decomposing underfoot. Rambo arrived at the sanctuary angry and frightened enough to throw a human across the barn. But it’s a year later now, and Rambo’s most assertive gesture is his lean: he demands a head scratch from all visitors by leaning against their legs.”1 But when my mom and I arrived, Rambo didn’t lean against us; he was keeping vigil in the pen of an animal new to the farm. You see, whenever a new animal is brought in, invariably feeling frightened and confused, Rambo spends all his time in that animal’s pen, sleeping with it and helping it eat if necessary, until the animal feels more comfortable in its new home. Rambo then moves back into his own pen until the next new animal comes onto the farm. While most (civilized) people assume that animals have no emotions or memories and will accuse me of anthropomorphizing, I can’t escape the conclusion that Rambo remembers his own difficult transition and has devoted the rest of his life to helping other animals find their way through their own.
Rambo’s touching story was the first thing I thought of when I heard the news story about Oscar, a cat who lives in a Rhode Island nursing home and curls up next to patients who are about to die.
When he senses their time is near, Oscar goes to the room, jumps onto the bed, curls up next to the patient, and purrs. The 2-year-old cat provides welcome company for grieving family members and staff keeping their bedside vigil; sometimes he fills in for family members who haven’t yet arrived at the bedside.
…
The cat, Dosa says, seems to snap to attention when he senses a patient is about to die. In the essay, for instance, Dosa tells of Oscar arriving at the room of a woman and curling up beside her for more than an hour, purring and paying attention to the patient as the family arrives and the priest gives last rites, then quietly taking his leave minutes after the woman passes away.
…
Oscar typically arrives at a dying patient’s bedside a few hours before death, Dosa says, but sometimes a half day before. His presence has been a comfort to many family members, Dosa says. And his presence, coupled with a resident’s worsening state of health, can help alert the nursing home staff to let family members know the patient may be nearing death.2
So is Oscar, like Rambo, there to comfort the dying, or does he morbidly enjoy being around dying people? “He may like the scent,” says Dr. Joan M. Teno. “Part of me says it’s a little bit freaky. Sometimes when I’m making rounds Oscar will come and sit with me in the window, and I keep on saying, ‘Does he know something I don’t?’ “3 Whether he means to or not, his presence helps make the end a little easier for the nursing home patients under his care. And while it may just be wishful thinking for me to suggest that he knows what he’s doing, this quote strongly suggests to me that he does:
One of the first cases, Teno says, involved a resident who had a blood clot
in her leg. “Her leg was ice cold,” Teno says. “Oscar wrapped his body around her leg,” she says, and stayed until the woman died.
By the way, Kathy Stevens recently wrote a book about the Catskill Animal Sanctuary which features stories about Rambo and other animals. You can buy Where the Blind Horse Sings now from Skyhorse Publishing, and I strongly recommend that you do.
I once held the belief that animals were devoid of emotion or thought. I no longer do; such a position can only be maintained by a strict ignorance and a total lack of experience. It doesn’t take much interaction with other animals at all to recognize their personhood.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 July 2007 @ 11:10 AM
I remember sitting in a high school english class talking about some stupid short story or other and the teacher (a raging bitch, if ever I’ve met one) said something to the effect of ‘Of course they don’t have feelings, have you ever just looked into a cat’s eyes? There’s nothing there.’ I remember feeling pretty ticked, of course there’s something there! How could you [b]not[/b] see it?!
Comment by jhereg — 26 July 2007 @ 11:18 AM
Has she ever looked into a cat’s eyes?! I’ve had three cats in my life, and believe me, there’s always something there, even if it’s boredom.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 26 July 2007 @ 12:12 PM
Hell if I know…
As I implied, she wasn’t one of those teachers that you’d voluntarily spend much time with.
Comment by jhereg — 26 July 2007 @ 2:06 PM
[quote]I once held the belief that animals were devoid of emotion or thought.[/quote]
Just out of curiosity, Jason, what made you change your mind?
As for the kitty story, yeah, I read about it just a little bit before Giuli posted it. Pretty amazing, huh?
Comment by Hasha — 27 July 2007 @ 7:34 AM
It has always amazed me how anyone could doubt that animals have emotions and think. For a start, we are animals
I would think that 5 minutes of hanging out with a friendly dog would dispel any doubt.
Corollary to this, animals are individuals, with their own personalities. If you’ve ever worked with training animals, you know that some are smarter than others.
Some are better at context than others. When you have a training session, they _know_ it is a training session and that they’re supposed to be learning something. Dolphins are famous for this. What old Gregory Bateson would call deutero-learning: learning to learn.
And I have no doubt that some animals possess what can only be described as a sense of humor.
Comment by roebuck — 27 July 2007 @ 8:34 AM
More experience is the inescapable effect of aging.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 July 2007 @ 9:44 AM
You post about a cat who senses death and comforts the dying as Miranda and Ben post about their cat passing away. Maybe Oscar was using you to reach out to Jet.
Comment by Rix — 27 July 2007 @ 9:57 AM
[quote]More experience is the inescapable effect of aging.[/quote]
I don’t know… You’ve got to be open to that experience first… There are some really efficient mechanisms for shutting out threatening/unsettling experience. I figured something must’ve changed in your case, something that made those mechanisms collapse for you. But then, that may be too private, and I certainly don’t mean to push you to reveal more than you’re comfortable revealing.
Comment by Hasha — 27 July 2007 @ 9:57 AM
No, it’s just the accumulation. Yes, we can shut out things that challenge us pretty effectively, but they can also build up. One or two incidents that don’t quite fit our mental model can be ignored, but when they become an avalanche, they can force our models to change.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 July 2007 @ 10:09 AM
Okay, Jason. But it’s just something I find quite fascinating: why/how two people from seemingly identical backgrounds (or close) and in seemingly identical situations (or close) wind up acting and thinking in radically different ways. So for you, the transition might seem completely natural, and in a sense, it was: just a gradual accumulation of new experience, as you said. This doesn’t change the fact that someone else in a similar situation would’ve simply gone on believing that animals are machines, just as good old Descartes said.
But I guess this is one of those things that you can analyze only up to a point; and beyond this point, you just have to attribute it to accident or free will or something like that.
Comment by Hasha — 27 July 2007 @ 11:09 AM
I’ve long thought that “Humanism” was little more than species-narcissism.
Comment by venuspluto67 — 27 July 2007 @ 11:33 AM
Hi Jason:
Google just alerted me to your blog, where I was delighted to read of your meeting with Rambo and your reaction to Oscar the cat.
I’m currently reading three books about animal behavior–one about a lion, one about chimpanzees, and one about a dog. The premise in each of them is the same as mine in Where the Blind Horse Sings: animals are infinitely more than most people know. Because I run a sanctuary that houses 175 formerly abused farm animals at a time, I’m able to interact constantly. Still, six and a half years into this work, I’m often deeply moved by the things we witness at Catskill Animal Sanctuary: a chicken’s display of gratitude, a horse nurturing a duck, a sheep comforting a nervous pig.
That they display love, courage, impatience, devotion to their friends, strong likes and dislikes–a whole world of emotions and traits largely considered human attributes–no longer surprises me.
It’s their empathy that takes my breath away. You’ve got a few details wrong but you’re essentially right about Rambo: Rambo welcomes newcomers, comforts the sick, and once let me know that we had left the turkeys outside (where they might have been attacked by coyotes). Granted, he’s an exceptional animal. But animals are so much more like us than I ever believed that I feel anthropomorphism is nothing more than a convenient way for science to justify the horrors that we have heaped upon animals over the centuries. Maybe it’s also a way for individuals to justify their personal choices–if animals don’t think or feel, what difference does it make if I buy this fur, purchase this product tested on animals, eat this steak?
The animals have taught me a great deal more than I ever imagined they would, and it’s these lessons I share in Where the Blind Horse Sings.
I hope people enjoy the book.
As for Oscar, he’s there to comfort.
Comment by Kathy Stevens — 27 July 2007 @ 1:11 PM
It is fascinating. One part is undoubtedly exposure. We in civilization have become very good at limiting how much exposure we have to the more-than-human world, and that keeps the contrary evidence and experience from piling up. Another part is your personal limit: how much contrary evidence does it take before you crack and re-evaluate your worldview? Mine, contrary to the frequent claims of people who can’t make convincing arguments, is actually quite low. That’s why I’ve changed my worldview so many times–it doesn’t take many contrary facts or experiences before I begin serious re-evaluation of my beliefs. Most people are much higher. Combine that with a limited exposure to non-human persons, and you have yourself a winning combination for anthropocentrism.
Kathy Stevens, thanks so much for your comment! Although, this post isn’t mine, it’s Giuli’s; she’s the one who went to the Sanctuary and met Rambo. This is a group blog, and Giuli is my wife.
I agree completely with what you’re saying. The way we treat animals is unspeakably cruel, and a huge part of that is the disconnect. We’ve allowed ourselves to become deaf to an ongoing discussion that every other animal, and still some humans, are part of and nourished by. Even ignoring the cruelty of it, we’re cutting out the basis of our own humanity out from under our own feet. Living in a world of only human voices drives us insane with the intellectual and emotional equivalent of inbreeding.
Of course, to be an animal is to live by another’s death. You may not kill an animal, but that just means you’ll kill a plant, and we’ve just as methodically avoided the personhood of plants. They recognize their family, they communicate with each other, eavesdrop on each other, talk to insects and other animals and maybe even us … but I’m getting ahead of myself, and giving away an article Giuli’s working on for the post-migration site. Ultimately, to be an animal is to live by death, and that binds every animal into a sacred pact to justify itself by giving back more than it takes. By blinding ourselves to the more-than-human world, we’ve forgotten that. There’s a world of difference between the reverence of a hunter-gatherer taking a deer to feed himself and his tribe, and the cruel machinery of a factory farm.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 July 2007 @ 2:39 PM
Ever read the book “When Elephants Weep?”
That’s a book that describes in detail the emotional lives of animals.
Comment by Taylor — 28 July 2007 @ 10:14 PM
Another Jason Godesky quotable quote!
Comment by venuspluto67 — 29 July 2007 @ 10:58 AM
I think people who believe animals are incapable of emotion are incredibly wrong. For instance sharks (odd reference, but a good one all the same) have a state called tonic (I think there is a longer name for the word, but that is the gist) and as I watch the Discovery Channel, I see this man try to put sharks into tonic, which is when sharks go kind of limp, an incredibly relaxed state where you can just sit, and..pet them, and they allow you to do it. They are in a sense asleep while being awake, anyway though this man conducted and experiment where he put this shark in tonic and then let it go, while having a nearby food canister he backed off some and let the shark choose between the food or more of this relaxed state, it chose the tonic. Later on while he was doing this to multiple sharks (because there were quite a few swimming around him) he would sit there as sharks would push other sharks out of the way just to get to this feeling that he would give them. To me that shows eagerness and kind of joy and you must have to think and get jealous to push other creature out of the way for what you want. Which shows thinking which can show emotion, just a thought..
Comment by Seth — 4 August 2007 @ 9:30 PM
My cat Bandit found me. She’ll come to her name, or a bag of treats. She greets me by smelling my face. Basically, where I have been, what I have been eating, and who I have been smelling. She likes Cream Savers Carmel candies more than me I think, I think she’d lick one away if I let her.
When I get depressed, she likes to sleep on me for a while, other times she will sleep near me.
Hey Jason, Welcome to The Oil Drum, some people’s opinions can be a bit stiff to take, but generaly the information about Oil is pretty good.
I post under the name ceojr1963.
Comment by Charles — 10 August 2007 @ 12:40 AM
Thanks, Charles; although I’ve actually been on the Oil Drum for quite some time, and it’s regular reading for me. I just don’t post unless I’ve got something to say, which isn’t too often there.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 10 August 2007 @ 7:45 AM
About 5 summers ago I was standing on the shore at Cannon Beach, OR with my two Goldies. The girl, Mira, was in the water up to her chest catching waves. I often joke that she is half-fish because of her love of getting wet and swimming, even in frigid waters. The boy, Bodhi, is the exact opposite in that he hates water and avoids it like the plague. So Bodhi and I are standing there at water’s edge watching Mira get hit by wave after wave when suddenly a big one comes in and picks her right up.
What was interesting to me about this incident was Bodhi’s reaction. His muscles tensed up instantly, his head and tail rose in alertness, and he took a step forward like a lifeguard preparing to throw himself into the water to rescue a drowning swimmer.
A second later the wave dropped Mira back down so that she was standing again. Bodhi immediately relaxed…probably relieved, in part, from realizing that he wouldn’t have to swim after all.
If I had any doubts about a dog’s ability to think and feel before, they were vaporized that day.
Comment by Peter — 11 August 2007 @ 1:27 PM