Meet Oscar, a cat with a supernatural ability to feel when people are about to die. In over 50 documented cases, Oscar, who lives in a nursing home , has curled up beside patients in their final hours, seeing them through to the ‘other side’.

His unique story was revealed by Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, who claims Oscar’s predictions have rarely been wrong in the past six years. In fact, he has even proved medical staff wrong at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, where he was adopted seven years ago as a kitten.

Dr. Dosa first told the world about Oscar’s rare gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Since then, the cat has accurately sensed even more deaths, convincing the geriatrician that it wasn’t just a series of coincidences.

Dr. Dosa doesn’t offer any scientific explanations for the cat’s abilities, but he does suggest that Oscar – like dogs that are reportedly able to smell cancer – might be able to smell ketones, which are distinctly odored biochemicals given off by dying cells.
Dr. Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in California, expands on that theory – that Oscar’s predictions might be a learned behavior. “There has been ample opportunity for him to make an association between ‘that’ smell and death.”
Irrespective of the reason, patients and their families at the nursing home find comfort in Oscar’s presence, in the idea that the animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass. The staff have grown so confident of Oscar’s ESP that they now inform family members when he snuggles up with one of the patients.

More details of the remarkable animal:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7129952/Cat-predicts-50-deaths-in-RI-nursing-home.html