Can Animals Predict Death?

When I had to have my first cat put down, I brought her home to bury her and put her in the kitchen so that my other two cats would know she was dead and not think I'd just taken her away and abandoned her. I thought this was important as all three were rescue cats, one way and another.

They were distressed - particularly the one that had lived with her in their prevvious home. There were no problems after I buried her.

When Safi went missing, his little half sister was distressed and kept asking for him and wanting me to "let him in". This went on for a few months.

On a lighter note, when I brought Safi home from his first vet visit, my older cat (the partner of the one who'd died) gave me the most disgusted look when I came back with him in the basket!

There are dogs which cam warn before their owner (hmmm 'owner' seems the wrong word here and 'partner' is hardly right either...) is going to have a seizure or somesuch, I can't remember the details.
So I'm sure they can sense plenty of stuff.
Del

Yeah, my dog does that. We have a second dog with a seizer disorder and my dog will alert us when it is going to start, but she is getting tired of doing because it happens so many times. My trainer's GSD is a certified medical alert dog for his respiratory condition.

Dogs know what you know and they know what you don't know.

Our dog, who doesn't usually like other people, took a liking to my sister-in-law while she was recovering from breast cancer at our house. I believe they sense something.

I read through the resources links and the articles were saying how dogs can predict seizures within 40 minutes and can also sense cancer. I think it's amazing the connection pets have to sense things like this. There is a good example of this in the book I am currently reading "The Art of Racing in the Rain" which tells the story through the dog's eyes.

It is well known that animal can sense chemicals more effectively than humans can. Sick body releases more smelly chemicals due to dead skin and release of chemicals that are unwanted and come out through sweat.

Animal can also see your emotions.

I am not sure if animal can see anyone splitting into self and would be ghost.

I can smell more than 99% human being can smell and that makes me difficult to eat food that is just 30 minutes or an hour early preparation. I usually eat fresh. I can also smell sickness of others including my wife and find hard to be near when sickness becomes unwanted smell to me. I have seen animals rejecting food that is not worth for them. They uses senses for a purpose and Dogs and Pigs and know for it. Most of the animals can sense some specific chemicals with high sensitivity.

I can also smell my sickness few days ahead of it when it really becomes real one so I know there is something coming in next few days and I start taking precautions.You can call it oversensitive.

Body senses and their capabilities differ in humans, and animals both and their reaction will also differ.

Prediction on the bases of inherent knowledge may come true at times but they are not a special vision and not to be taken seriously.

This amazing!!! you have gift from god. Is it can be developed and improved by time? How you can compare smell of sick person to his smell when he is well? Is there any relations with the so called para-physics in your case?

I would guess it is to do with smell. Two nurses who work with geriatric patients have told me that there is often a change in a person's smell shortly before their death. Cats and dogs have a much better sense of smell than us so would pick it up earlier.

My dog Micky whose pic is in my avatar, just started running out of our home before dying. I was told that before death dogs try to leave the home so that their dead body does not make mess inside the house.

Hi Hero,

Thanks for your comments. Loss of pets is unbearable for whole family.They are like members of the family. My dog Pomeranian was beautiful and very good natured, she had never bitten anyone.

She had very strong smelling power, whenever she smelled some one from family has just passed the road to our home she would catch the smell and would like to rush home.

Suresh Sharma.

Maybe Oscar the cat is not sensing death but is actually bringing death; maybe this sweet little kitty is death incarnate. One more reason to be a dog person.

Also, in my case, it is birds that either occasionaly come into the house or use your head as a perch, that have made their presence just prior to death of friends / family members.

"In other words, we are evaluating our animals based upon our tool chest not theirs."

We do that to everything, but you are spot on about pet owners' Anthropomorphism. It's one of the biggest barriers to training dogs.

"...half of their brain is dedicated to smell and hearing. Yet I, as a trainer, train my dogs using mostly the lesser functions of their brain."

As you no doubt know, dogs have some very strong drives. They may have a lot of neuro-logic dedicated to olfactory and auditory senses, but the drives determine the animal's behavior.

I heard of an experiment that proved that some dogs knew when their people were going home ... no, they did not hear the car pulling in, they sensed when the owners were ready to leave for home ... ESP?/quantum energy? ... probably.

My second adopted dog grieved his dog companion in an unusual way ... he started to rest in the same spot on the stairs where the other dog used to wait for us … he started to roll on grass in the backyard and beach as the other one used to do … he tossed his bed just like his companion did after we came home … for several weeks he would not stay with us but preferred to sleep by the front door just in case he heard the first one behind ... until then he never did any those things, and they lived together for several years ... I found his behavior painful to watch because I knew that he did all that to express his desire to see his friend again ... it still brings tears to my eyes when I think of those four months how he coped with the loss of his younger buddy.

Tsk, Tsk. Science is about inquiry. And it is encouraged... except when it deals with subjects like this.

There is a "science" of spirit, whereby one can experience consciousness beyond the senses (without drugs!). Only no one is interested in pursuing it. There is a reality beyond our 5 senses. The most direct experiment is to use one's own consciousness as the "laboratory". Concentrate within and find out what the Single or Third Eye is.

But even within the realm of physical science there are plenty of experiments that indicate that "something" non-physical is operating. This is not whacko territory. Do any of you have the explanation of what medium light uses to travel through a vacuum? I'll admit I haven't been reading physics papers in the last 20 years but I don't think that mystery has been truly solved.

Dark energy? Dark matter? Please. As Shakespeare has Hamlet say, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." It's O.K. to propose fantastic solutions (or give names to things not understood) within the game of science, but not so for other inquirers?

Spend your precious time in this life looking only at what can be experienced via your physical senses and then find out in the end that it was a waste of time. Or maybe... just maybe, look at experiments that can indicate a connection between seemingly separateness in life and decide how you can either improve them and/or do them yourselves first before demeaning them and those who have at least tried to design experiments to gain some knowledge of "something" going on. To just dismiss, out of hand, the experience of people who say there is much more to life and consciousness than is dreamt of by our scientific philosophies, is close-minded.

Sorry to disagree with you Anonymous Hero. To say animals are after all just animals is based on what? Your belief. Nothing more. If we still don't really know what "consciousness" is (and I don't think science has gotten a full explanation for that) then who can we pass judgment on whether or not it exists in some form in animals or not? This is arrogance. "Something" animates matter. "Something" animates everything. Does anyone really think that something can come out of nothing?? Give me an example of it. This violates scientific understanding.

At the risk of bringing up something considered taboo in forum threads, most religious traditions around the world say spirit is what animates matter. And it has been "individualized" as part of this creation (also called a "play"). These individual extensions of the One, so to speak, have histories and these histories are played out through physical bodies. This viewpoint says that animal bodies are really no different from human bodies, as far as being "inhabitable" by spirit. The consciousness is definitely lower and duller, but is consciousness, nonetheless. Now this paragraph contains the kinds of statements that are just like scientific expressions, such as "dark matter" and "dark energy." Sounds good but where is the proof? Everyone races to investigate (how???) the scientific unknowns, but no one is interested in investigating the "spiritual" ones. If one looks for an esoteric side to Christianity, it exists. There is a tradition of "secret" knowledge in most religions that isn't given to being presented to the masses. Jesus taught his disciples in secret. What teaching was that? St. Augustine, mentions, the "Inner Light." ("If only they could behold the inner Light Eternal which, now that I had tasted it, I gnashed my teeth because I could not show it to them unless they brought me their heart in their eyes -- their roving eyes -- and said, "Who will show us any good?") There are plenty of "quotes" from different scriptures in different traditions indicating experiences of a mystical nature. This experience can be sought. There are techniques for concentrating one's consciousness within, and contacting this "Inner Light" (and Sound Principle). Just because it sounds bizarre to most westerners doesn't mean there is not something to it. The beginning of John speaking of the "Word" is not about the words printed in the Bible. Read it carefully, it can't mean that in the context in which it is mentioned. It is the primordial Light and Sound Current which has brought all into expression. Life is vibratory. Would anyone disagree with that? It is vibrating within each "man" but is ignored by him.

So, all "scientists" go on believing that physicality is all there is to life. They are content to wait until death to get the ultimate answer as to whether there is more to life than is taught in orthodox religions -- Christianity included. And believers, go on thinking that nothing can be known about non-physical reality, until death, taking everything on "faith." Neither course is very intelligent or worthy of a truly scientific mind.

Of course they can - just as humans can.

Just as everything knows when it's about to be "put down", or in the human case 'wish it was over".

It's kinda a "doctors and advanced technologies cannot" problem if they are that totally insensitive (read thick).

Certainly, animals and birds are known to have demonstrated the ability to sense an impending eathquake, tsunami or tornado, probably because they can hear or otherwise detect the associated vibrations in the earth that precede these events, so it makes sense that they can also smell biochemical changes that are associated with illnesses such as malignant cancers or that precede events such as seizures or death.

I had seen a documentary about this cat at a nursing home.

The film was brought under scutiny by experts.

They found one thing that was connected to all the patients that past on.

And that was an electric blanket that was put on the patient who soon past on. Each picture showed that cat laying on this nice warm electric blanket.