Can animals detect death? How pets react to death.

[boogieboogie]

I've just caught some Richard & Judy and they had guest on who'd wrote a book about animals that seem to sense death. How their behaviour changes when someone is or has died. Also stories of birds and crows gathering on the rooftops of houses where someone is dying. And a common one is a bird entering the house after the death of someone.
Has anyone on here a similar story.

[lankeela]

Reminds me of an old Steptoe and Son episode. The old man was worried because pigeons were landing on his roof and he thought it meant he was going to die. He said it had happened to Mrs So and So across the road, all the pigeons gathered on her roof and a few weeks later she was dead. The son then replied but she was 97 dad.

[boogieboogie]

And so am I....
Was the next line? haha. Steptoe was ancient or maybe he just looked it. Great story. Maybe an old wives tale (the birds) O look I just realise The Birds as in the Alfred Hitchcock film is another take on this.. interesting none the less.

[spudqueen]

There's an article in todays Daily Mail on this
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article -1030958/The-weird-world-mystic-mogs-death-sen sing-dogs.html

[wildwood]

Most animals can sense death but not in the manner as described by the article. This is just another example of wishful thinking on the basis that humans are the principal beings and all others animals are here to please them.
Some dogs who become emotionally attached to some of their carers will display a sign of sadness if their owner kicked the bucket, but if another household member was present they rarely show any sign of missing the one that has 'disappeared'. All other animals can really not be bothered if you drop dead or not as long as someone feeds them.

Quite a few animals will show signs of emotion when a close relative of their own species dies however. Well documented examples of this include elephants, primates, whales and strangely enough, horses.

[lajohn]

http://tinyurl.com/4e5k7g

[Ice.Maiden]

Elephants also do this, and actually weep over their dead young.
Certain primates also hold onto a deceased youngster for up to several days as well.

[ELVIS68]

I read somewhere that just before the Tsunami struck a few years ago, that birds and other animals fled inland

Also read a story about a dog that sensed something was wrong with it`s owner, turns out it was cancer

[Ice.Maiden]

I believe most animals have an ESP when it comes to disasters and death, etc. It's just that we as humans don't fully understand it yet.

[ELVIS68]

My dog has a clock in his head, he sits on the back of the sofa and looks out the window at 3.15 when the kids are coming home from school and at 6.30 he knows it`s time for his "walkies" cos he`ll bring his lead in

I think he knows when women are on their monthlies too cos he "muff dives"them.....very embarrassing

[I love Tiggy]

I definitely believe in the crow theory reason being that my mum was sick in hospital and at the time i was at my boyfs house, we looked onto the garden and there must have been at least 20 crows there, he ran outside to make them go but they kept returning.

Three days later mum died.

The same happened to him, however he was in NE East India at the time.

I know this sounds like ***** but honest to god this is true

[eyeshade]

Ooer, hope I don't see a flock of crows between now and 2030!!!

[merejeans]

Nothing to do really with the original question, but Elvis, I read once that seagulls turn up every day at land fill sites, apart from Sunday, because they know nothing new is coming in, but they get a bit foxed by bank holidays.

[babybombo]

Well we know that dogs can detect cancer cells so they can probably detect any other sort of "bad" things within the body.

When my sister was a teenager she got her belly button pierced, when she came home she had quite a thick top on and a coat but the first thing the dog did was jump up and try to sniff her belly button.
A few days later he kept trying to get to her belly button and kept whining at it, after about a week she ended up in hospital as it was infected.
Seems like the dog had known all along something was up with it.

My cat has been very close to death on many occasions as she has breathing difficulties, everytime she has one of her episodes the other two cats sit near her and watch, they usually all fight and stay as far apart as possible.

I think animals can definitely sense death and even illness in people and other animals.

[ELVIS68]

That`s why they take dogs to old peoples homes, not for the oldies to stroke them, but to find out who`s going to die next lol