Cats are known for having heightened senses compared to humans. Their sense of smell, hearing, and intuition seem almost supernatural at times. This leads many cat owners to wonder – can cats sense death or dying?
The short answer is yes, cats may be able to sense when a person or animal is close to death. Cats have an acute sense of smell, so they may pick up on bodily scents that indicate illness or impending death. Their hearing is also very sensitive, allowing them to potentially detect subtle changes in breathing patterns or heart rates. Cats may also pick up on physiological changes or changes in body chemistry that humans are unaware of.
Additionally, cats may detect subtle behavioral and morphological changes in a dying person or animal that go unnoticed by humans. Their advanced intuitive abilities may allow them to perceive the onset of death prior to any tangible signs. There are many anecdotal reports of cats seeming to understand when a person in their home is nearing end of life and sitting in vigil until death occurs. However, more scientific research is still needed to truly confirm cats’ abilities to predict death or determine if they understand the concept of mortality.
How Might Cats Sense Impending Death?
There are a few ways cats may potentially be able to detect when a person or animal is approaching death:
Smell
Cats have an extremely advanced sense of smell, far superior to humans. They have around 200 million odor-sensitive cells in their noses, compared to only 5 million in humans. Their sense of smell is about 14 times as strong as humans. This allows them to potentially detect very subtle changes in body odor that may indicate illness or impending death.
As the body begins shutting down in the last stages of life, chemical changes occur in the blood, cells, and digestive system. Subtle changes in bodily scents may be undetectable to humans but quite clear to cats. Cats may pick up on the smell of impending death even before any visible signs appear.
Hearing
Cats can hear frequencies about two octaves higher than humans are capable of hearing. They can detect frequencies up to 64,000 Hz, whereas humans can only detect up to 20,000 Hz. This allows cats to hear subtle changes in breathing patterns, such as shallow breathing or congestion/fluid buildup in lungs that often precedes death.
Their advanced hearing also lets them detect subtle changes in heart rate and rhythm. A cat may recognize irregular patterns signaling a person is approaching death before the human caretakers notice tangible signs.
Intuition
Many cat owners and animal behaviorists believe that cats have extra-sensory abilities to predict or detect death. This is linked to their highly intuitive and observant nature. Cats seem to understand routine and any changes from the norm.
For a sick, elderly, or dying person, subtle changes in appearance, scent, breathing, or routine may occur over time. While humans may overlook these small changes, cats are very attuned to the specific sights, sounds, and habits of their human companions. They may pick up on these subtle shifts and understand their significance.
Changes in Behavior
Cats may be able to detect subtle shifts in appearance, mobility, or demeanor that indicate an animal or person is dying. Humans may not notice small changes in weight, coloration, energy levels, or balance in a sick companion. But cats will be very attuned to the normal patterns of their animal housemate and alert to any deviations.
For human companions, cats also take note of all the regular daily routines and behaviors. Subtle behavioral changes that escape human notice – such as changes in sleep patterns, socialization, litter box habits, food/water intake, vocalizations, etc – may be immediately obvious to cats.
Signs a Cat May Detect or Understand Death
People who believe their cats predicted or reacted to an impending death often notice the following signs:
Increased attachment/affection
As humans, we often feel an increased desire to spend time with loved ones when we sense their remaining time is limited. Similarly, cats often begin clinging very closely to their human companions in the days/hours leading up to death. They may insist on staying close by their side and be reluctant to leave.
Changes in vocalization
Some cats noticeably increase their vocalizations and communicating when they sense a human family member is dying. They may meow insistently as if trying to communicate something urgent. Or their meows take on a different tone – sometimes sounding plaintive or mournful.
Appetite changes
Terminally ill cats may stop eating or decline favorite treats as death nears. Some perfectly healthy cats housed with dying companions also experience a diminished appetite close to the time of death, potentially indicative of their awareness.
Towering/perching on person
Cats often seek high perches to survey their surroundings and feel in control. Some cats will jump up onto the bed or chest of a dying person as if standing vigil. They remain close by during final hours or moments.
Restlessness/pacing
Some cats seem unable to settle down and compulsively pace back and forth when they sense a person’s impending death. Their agitation may reflect intuition of what is to come.
Staring
Cats have an intense stare, and some seem to look at their owners with great focus and intensity as they are dying – as if they understand the gravity of what is happening.
Self-isolation
While some cats grow more clingy, others begin isolating themselves in response to the impending death of a person or animal companion. They may hide away under furniture and want to be left alone.
Marking behavior
Some cats engage in increased scratching, urine marking, or “kneading” behaviors on or near the terminally ill. They may be trying to impart something about their sense of impending death or make the environment more comfortable/familiar.
Final visit to “say goodbye”
There are many anecdotal accounts of cats who never sat in a dying owner’s lap or slept in bed with them coming to do so in the final hours. It seems as if they intentionally come to “say goodbye” before death occurs.
Can Cats Understand the Concept of Death?
While cats may be able to sense and predict impending death in many cases, it is harder to conclude whether they understand the permanence and significance of death. Some key considerations:
Search behaviors
When a cherished animal companion or human family member dies, cats will often initially act as though expecting that individual to return. They may wait by the door, peer out windows, or meow expectantly – suggesting they do not comprehend the finality of death.
Lack of ritual
Humans have elaborate customs and rituals surrounding death. But cats do not engage in any comparable mournful rituals or funerary behaviors. They lack the cultural concepts of death/dying that humans have.
Short-term memory
Cats are thought to have short-term working memories that last about 16 hours. This may limit their ability to remember and understand when a companion has disappeared permanently versus temporarily. Their short-term memory fades after death removes an animal or human from their presence.
Recognition of permanence
However, some cats do seem to demonstrate signs of missing deceased companions long term and showing understanding of their absence. Litter mates, for example, may continue looking for a sibling who has died years prior. So cats may retain some level of long-term memory and recognition of death’s significance.
Grieving behaviors
Like humans, cats grieve the loss of their close human and animal companions. Grieving, depression, and personality changes following a death imply cats have some comprehension that their friend is forever gone.
Conceptual vs. instinctual understanding
It seems clear cats do not have the same philosophical constructs of life and death that humans do. However, they may have an instinctual, intuitive understanding of death as permanent loss even if they cannot grasp the full existential meaning.
Do Cats Understand Their Own Mortality?
There is no evidence that cats have an awareness of their own inevitable mortality. Some key reasons:
Lack existential thought
Contemplating one’s existence, significance, and mortality requires advanced cognitive abilities that cats simply do not possess. Their brains are not wired for the type of profound, self-aware existential thinking that underlies human understanding of death.
Innate survival instinct
All healthy animals, including cats, are hardwired for survival. While cats may sense death in those around them as an adaptive survival mechanism, it would not make sense biologically for them to dwell on their own impending death. They stay focused on the immediacy of existing in the present moment.
No mortuary customs
Humans’ preoccupation with death stems largely from our elaborate cultural customs and taboos around death and dying. Cats do not have any comparable death rituals, mourning behaviors, or taboos about corpses that would necessitate contemplating mortality.
Lack foreseeable trajectory
Humans’ understanding of mortality is very influenced by our sense of a predictable life trajectory with expected milestones and a known end. Cats have no defined life stages or foreseeable decline with old age. With their less regimented lives, they likely do not dwell on approaching mortality.
Shorter lifespans
Cats may simply not live long enough lifespan-wise for an innate awareness of death to evolve. They only live approximately 15-20 years on average. Humans’ longer lifespans make understanding mortality salient and practically necessary.
Overall, while cats may be able to perceive and predict imminent death, current evidence suggests they likely do not have a full existential understanding of mortality comparable to humans. Their innate survival instincts keep them grounded in the here-and-now.
Can Cats Sense Human Emotions Related to Grieving and Death?
Many cat owners report their pets displaying unusual behaviors or comforting gestures following a human family member’s death, indicating they detect associated grief. Some examples:
Increased affection
Cats often become very nurturing and clingy when their human caretakers display sadness, depression, or grief. They will cuddle up closely, rub their heads against the grieving person, and offer other affectionate gestures as if trying to console them.
Changes in vocalization
Some cats meow or chirp more frequently when their humans are grieving, as if trying to communicate comfort. Or their vocal tones may sound more mournful or soft as if empathizing with the sorrowful mood.
Appetite changes
Many cats seem to lose interest in food or appetites decline following the death of a family member. This mirrors how grieving people often experience a decreased desire to eat.
Sleeping nearby
Whereas cats normally sleep in favored secluded spots, grieving humans often report their cats insist on sleeping right beside or atop them as if offering protective companionship. The close physical proximity seems to soothe both parties.
Staring/watching
Cats’ tendency to stare intently at their grieving caretakers may indicate an intuitive understanding of the person’s emotional pain related to the loss. Their intense focus suggests a sense of shared mourning.
Lead to significant site
There are reports of cats “leading” grieving owners to important places related to the deceased, like their empty bed, favorite sitting spot, or burial site in the yard. This may show cats understand the emotional significance of those locations.
Overall, feline behavior experts agree that cats do seem capable of detecting emotional cues, energy shifts, and personality changes in grieving humans following a major loss. Their supportive behaviors suggest an innate emotional intelligence and desire to provide comfort during times of grief, even if they cannot fully comprehend the specifics of human mortality.
The Bottom Line
Cats’ advanced intuitive abilities, highly attuned senses, and capacity to detect emotional cues give them a unique ability to detect when death or severe illness is approaching in those around them. However, more scientific research is still needed to fully understand the scope of cats’ comprehension when it comes to detecting and understanding mortal demise.
It appears clear cats do not have the same complex philosophical notions of life, death, and mortality that give humans’ understanding more existential meaning. But they do seem to have an innate, primal awareness of death as a permanent loss of life even if they cannot grasp the full existential profundity. Their supportive behaviors as humans grieve also indicate cats pick up on mourning cues and want to offer comfort.
While the specifics are still debated, it seems cats do have an uncanny capacity to tell when a close human or animal companion is nearing their final hours. Their attentiveness, behaviors, and attempts to alert others suggest these intuitive creatures understand more about the dying process than we may realize.