Why we love dogs

[Mr. Scot]

Therapy Dog comforts a dying patient

[ladypanther]

Very touching.  Awesome dog.

Also there is the story of the nursing home cat that could predict death.  Animals are awesome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_(therapy_cat)

After about six months, the staff noticed that Oscar, just like the doctors and nurses, would make his own rounds. Oscar would sniff and observe patients, then curl up to sleep with certain ones. The patients he would sleep with often died within several hours of his arrival. One of the first cases involved a patient who had a blood clot in her leg that was ice cold at the time. Oscar wrapped his body around her leg and stayed until the woman died.^[4] In another instance, the doctor had made a determination of impending death based on the patient's condition, while Oscar simply walked away, causing the doctor to believe that Oscar's streak (12 at the time) had ended. However, it would be later discovered that the doctor's prognosis was simply 10 hours too early: Oscar later visited the patient, who died two hours later.^[5]

Oscar's accuracy (which stood at more than 25 consecutive reported instances when the NEJM article was written) led the staff to institute a new and unusual protocol: once he is discovered sleeping with a patient, staff will call family members to notify them of the patient's (expected) impending death.^[5]

Most of the time the patient's family has no issue with Oscar being present at the time of death. On those occasions when he is removed from the room at the family's request, he is known to pace back and forth in front of the door and meow in protest. When present, Oscar will stay by the patient until they die, then after death will quietly leave the room.

Oscar is described by Dr. David Dosa as "not a cat that’s friendly to [living] people."^[6] One example of this was described in his NEJM article. When an elderly woman with a walker passed him by during his rounds, Oscar "[let] out a gentle hiss, a rattlesnake-like warning that [said] 'leave me alone.'"^[5]

As of January 2010, Oscar had accurately predicted approximately 50 patients' deaths.^[2]

[Vampire the buffet slayer]

This is why I love dogs. She was my child before I had a child.