Here’s a charming story from the CBC about Oscar, a cat that lives in a Rhode Island nursing home. Oscar apparently has an unusual skill:
Oscar makes his daily rounds, waiting patiently outside rooms if the doors are closed, wrote Dosa. Once inside, the grey-and-white cat jumps onto beds and appears to inspect patients by sniffing the air.
If Oscar leaves the room, the patient isn’t likely to die that day, said Dosa.
But when the cat curls up on the bed, staff notice. They start phoning family members because the patient usually dies within four hours.
Experts are uncertain about how Oscar makes these calls–they cite scents given off by the patient or the behaviour of the nurses as possibilities.
Poppycock! Clearly the cat is secretly knocking off these poor patients when they’re not looking.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I have three cats. They regularly curl up on my bed. Are they really trying to tell me something?
Faster Pussycat! Kill Kill!
I have three cats too. Once I dreamt I was suffocating, only to discover that one of our cats, Mojo, was sleeping on my chest. FYI, Mojo is a black persian that weighs close to 10 kilos.
I’ve heard numerous stories about this phenomenon. I think one of the explanations cited a change in body temp/body smell when a person was about to die.
My previous cat used to curl up on my lower abdomen whenever I had bad menstrual cramps. The pressure (she was huge) and heat from her actually helped a bit.
Also, my current cat likes to jump on me at dawn every morning. I think she’s trying to get me to death faster.
Hmmm…. I’m not getting a cat anytime soon.
I, too, have heard of cats in nursing homes staying with a client thru the dying hours.
I worked for six years as an art therapist in a dementia unit. We had two cats during that time. Both cats always slept with dying patients. I came to the conclusion that they did this because dying people give off heat and cats like warm bodies to snuggle up to.
Well cats are supposed to be the guardians of the underworld, pets of reapers, so it is his duty to see them off to the next life.
He’s a good kitty.
I’m incessantly thought about this, thanks for putting up.