The Amazing Life of Cats (6 page)
A
cat saved the life of a newborn baby abandoned on the doorstep of a house in Cologne, Germany, in the middle of the night, by meowing loudly until someone woke up, a police spokesman said.
‘The cat is a hero,’ Cologne police spokesman Uwe Beier said. ‘Its loud meowing got the attention of the homeowner and saved the baby from suffering life-threatening hypothermia. The homeowner opened the door to see why the cat was making so much noise and discovered the newborn.’
Susan Raymond
The cat with unrelenting grace
Ignores my outstretched hand,
Lithely disdains my proffered lap—
Than there debase himself to nap
He’d much prefer to stand.
But when my supplications cease,
I lie in soporific peace—
Oh, then he comes with silent pace
And firmly sits upon my face.
Alison Williams
A
cat with an uncanny ability to detect when nursing home patients are about to die has proven itself in around fifty cases by curling up with them in their final hours, according to a new book.
A geriatrician and assistant professor, Dr Dosa, at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death.
Oscar was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, which specialises in caring for people with severe dementia.
Dr Dosa first publicised Oscar’s gift in an article in the
New England Journal of Medicine
in 2007. Since then, the cat has gone on to double the number of imminent deaths it has sensed and convinced the geriatrician that it is no fluke.
The tortoiseshell and white cat spends its days pacing from room to room, rarely spending any time with patients except those with just hours to live. If kept outside the room of a dying patient, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in.
When nurses once placed the cat on the bed of a patient they thought close to death, Oscar ‘charged out’ and went to sit beside someone in another room. The cat’s judgement was better than that of the nurses: the second patient died that evening, while the first lived for two more days.
Dr Dosa and other staff are so confident in Oscar’s accuracy that they will alert family members when the cat jumps onto a bed and stretches out beside its occupant. ‘It’s not like he dawdles. He’ll slip out for two minutes, grab some kibble and then he’s back at the patient’s side. It’s like he’s literally on a vigil,’ Dr Dosa wrote.
Dr Dosa noted that the nursing home keeps five other cats, but none of the others have ever displayed a similar ability.
In his book,
Making Rounds with Oscar: The extraordinary gift of an ordinary cat
, Dr Dosa offers no solid scientific explanation for Oscar’s behaviour but he does suggest Oscar is able—like dogs, which can reportedly smell cancer—to detect ketones, the distinctly odoured biochemicals given off by dying cells.
Far from recoiling from Oscar’s presence, now they know its significance, relatives and friends of patients have been comforted and have even praised the cat in newspaper death notices and eulogies, said Dr Dosa. ‘People were actually taking great comfort in this idea, that this animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass. He was there when they couldn’t be,’ he said.
From the Daily Telegraph, United Kingdom
Cat said, ‘I am not a friend, and I am
not a servant. I am the Cat who walks
by himself, and I wish to come into
your cave.’
Rudyard Kipling, from Just So Stories
M
y three children and I had recently found good families for our mother cat’s litter of kittens, except for the two—brother and sister—we could not separate ourselves from. These two—one completely white and the other completely black—always lay together so closely intertwined that all our visitors thought we had trained them to look like the Chinese Yin-Yang symbol. We were contented with our cat family, but it wasn’t long before our situation changed dramatically.
Some friends of ours who owned a Siamese cat were going overseas and at the last minute had been left in a position where they had to find a home for her. When they first asked me it was easy to say no. I pointed out that we already had two kittens and that the older cat might not take to them. But my friends were desperate. Desperate enough that they said they would deliver her around to our house in half an hour. It left us no time to think, so somewhat reluctantly I agreed.
When Richard arrived he was very grateful, but he issued me a warning. ‘This cat is a very self-willed being,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure she will get used to you.’
They were in a hurry to leave, and so Richard ran through the garden to his car to fetch the already traumatised cat. He held the struggling, glowering beast tightly in his arms. No sooner had he entered the house than she escaped from his arms and immediately dashed from one corner to another in utter confusion and panic. All we could do was stand still, watching her frantic behaviour, hoping she would calm down before tearing the curtains to pieces. Suddenly she disappeared. After a long search we found her: she was happily ensconced under the washing machine in the laundry.
Richard was satisfied. ‘She’ll come out for her food. Don’t worry,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Goodbye! We’ll write to you from London.’
Throughout this exciting drama, our two little kittens stayed on their favourite chair, wrapped around each other in perfect harmony, not moving a muscle, pretending to be asleep.
For three days and nights Mrs Cat, as we called her, did not move from her hiding place, did not even touch the dish of milk, let alone the fresh meat I replaced lovingly. She gave not one sign of life!
On the evening of the third day, when I was beginning to think we would have to take some sort of action, although I could not think what, I sat alone in the lounge room. The children had gone to a party, there was no movement, no children’s laughter, no sound except the clicking of my knitting needles.
Suddenly I noticed a small shadow at the door to the lounge room, almost motionless—was it the cat? Two large, gleaming Siamese eyes looked at me intently. I stopped knitting. I thought I would just wait and see what she would do. What seemed like hours passed while we both sat there, looking at one another. I thought to myself: ‘She’s the one who has to make the next step. I’ve given her all the invitations. I’ve fed her, I’ve talked to her many times.’
Did I observe a slight movement of her front paws? Yes! It was hardly noticeable, but then she moved again, as if in a slow-motion film, muscle by muscle, stalking towards me, all the time keeping her wide-open eyes fixed on mine. It could have been a scene from thousands of years ago—the possibility of interaction between human and animal, neither sure how this would proceed. I too was caught in the time capsule she’d created and I gave myself fully to the experience: just her and me alone in the whole world.
How long her approach through the room lasted, neither of us registered. But finally she arrived at my feet, looking up at me, her expression clearly saying, ‘Will I dare to jump up on her lap, the way cats do, cats who are owned by someone who loves them unconditionally?’
And so I gave her a silent answer: ‘Yes, I’m prepared to be your human loved one, the person who will offer you their lap; the person with whom you can have that intimate bond. I shall feed you and you shall love me, sit on my lap and purr.’
Mrs Cat looked at me for the longest time, until she was sure of the message. Then, with one sudden jump, she landed on my lap. The eye contact was broken, but she settled down and purred—a loud clear purr. The message was complete. We belonged to each other.
Throughout this silent but tense drama our little twins, the black kitten and the white, had been sleeping in their favourite easy chair. Now they started to stretch themselves and yawn, showing their little pink tongues; they soon became aware of the intruder on my lap and approached the sofa to find out what was happening.
Mrs Cat stood up, hair raised from one Siamese end of her to the other, and spat at them, ‘This is my own, my very unique space. Here I am. I am the queen of the castle!’ They immediately got the message, went back to their safe seat, settled down and closed their eyes.
Not even the noise of the returning children removed Mrs Cat from my lap. She sat firmly, looking at them as if from a great height. I finally got up to check on her little dish and found that for the first time she had eaten her full portion. Had she planned today’s regal appearance?
At first we were all greatly amused by Mrs Cat’s bossy ways, but our amusement turned to concern when this ruler of the roost would not permit any of our friends to enter the house! According to her unwritten law, I was the only being allowed in her presence; even the children were tolerated only after great difficulties. I often had to hold on to the cat to prevent her from scratching them. Certainly no one from the outside world was permitted entrance into her domain. It had always been my habit to keep ‘an open house’, and our front door was usually wide open to welcome any friends wishing to visit us. To prevent what she evidently considered unlawful behaviour, Mrs Cat would sit on the narrow top ledge above the open door, out of sight of most people. As they entered, she would give the unsuspecting visitor a hard whack on their head with her sharp claws while at the same time uttering a loud spitting command to get off her property!
Once I realised that this was the cat version of a dog barking to keep strangers at bay, I got used to calling out a sharp ‘Wait!’ to our dear friends as they neared our door. Then I would run and hoist Mrs Cat down into my arms while we all put up with her furious caterwauling.
But there was no doubt that Mrs Cat and I formed the most intimate relationship of wordless communication. One afternoon many months after her first rapprochment, again when I was home by myself, she was sitting comfortably on my lap, and we had been there cuddling happily for a long time. She even permitted me to knit while she sat purring sweetly. Finally, though, I had to get up.