On Thursday lst I had three minor surgical procedures which unfortunately had some unpleasant side effects and has confined me to bed since then but I have been astonished by the behavior of my cat Millie. She has hardly left my side, only goes out now to do her business, once done is scratching at the door to get back in instead of her usual 2 hour patrol. In the morning, where she would normally annoy me to feed her at around 3.30am at the moment nothing. I have heard her stir as she is sleeping close by but now there is no head nudging or standing on me just patiently waiting until I am ready to get up. During the day she come and lie beside me close to my chest for some serious petting which is something she is not prone to do normally. So she knows all is not well with me but how I know not. Anyone else experience similar situations which are really quite inexplicable?
Our dogs won't leave you alone if you are upset. I am fairly sure they just like the taste of tears though.
I've certainly noticed this with our cat. Whenever somebody's ill she decides to go and sleep with them throughout the day. It's noticeable as she has quite a regular daily routine. It may be that she thinks of them as a stable source of company? I know that if my cat thinks she's alone she starts calling around the house in quite a "needy" tone (she obviously knows that it gets attention fast). Often I'll be upstairs when she does this, if I call her name she'll instantly run upstairs and try to find me, seemingly for a hug (if not, she gets that anyway). It's difficult to know when you're simply transferring human emotions to your pets, some of the things they do are just so uncanny.
I don't wish to rain on anyone's parade, but I suspect that most pets like comfort, warmth and company, so being bed/sofa ridden is probably their idea of heaven. From my experience anyway. Admittedly the only time I lie in my bed to do anything other than sleep these days is when I'm very unwell, but my cats would be there come rain or shine.
I've noticed when someone is sick both our dogs will lay / stay with them. Normally the two dogs don't stay together, so its quite interesting to see them come together when someone is sick. I've also noticed our dogs don't like swearing. When my brother or me are playing games and swear at the screen / sound angry, dogs will run away. Kinda funny. We've tested it and just swearing will make them run away.
My cats certainly know when I'm ill, and they will sleep on me all day if I'm stuck in bed. Pets tend to know when we're sick. They say that some dogs can even smell cancer. I wonder what all they're capable of.
With Millie that really does not apply as she would normally sleep where there is no one during the day, she does tend to sleep close to me at night. She certainly is not into serious petting either. Not spending most of the morning in and out of the house is not like her either. Without a doubt she is behaving out of her normal boundaries, it will be interesting to see if she reverts to these when I am back on my feet.
I think most peoples pets know if a member is ill most will have degree of empathy. One dog I had used to bring in tea and toast when I was ill in bed loved that dog
Our rabbit definitely senses something, just not sure if he's trying to console us, or hanging around waiting to eat us if we die.
I firmly believe that animals know when something isn't right. It's bizarre, but they just know. My sister and her husband recently got a puppy, and when my sisters mum (not my mum) went to their house, the dog instantly went to her and wouldn't leave her alone. She has too many medical conditions to name or count. The dog is absolutely confined to my brother in-law so the fact that he left and sat by her instead just proves my theory. Sure, there's the aspect that she was also a new person, but the puppy didn't go anywhere near as mad around me or other members of the family as he did around her.
There is some relatively recent research into this hypothesis. I tried to link to the related journals, but I didn't have much luck getting the pages to load (plus, there may be paywall issues). Instead, here is a 2006 National Geographic article about it. The general idea is that some tumors produce various aromatic compounds that some dogs are able to detect in a person's breath or urine. It's a pretty cool idea if it holds up to further study. As to whether or not our pets can tell if we're ill - and if they can, do they really care - I wonder of some of that feeling is due to us anthropomorphizing a bit. As Shirty mentioned, companion animals enjoy comfort, warmth and, well, companionship. If I'm on the couch sick or on the couch watching a movie, my dog likes to rest her head on my lap. My health doesn't seem to factor into it. For sure, when the laundry room door opens she knows full well she's getting a treat, so she leaves the couch in a hurry. (As an aside, I'm still unsure whether we've trained her, or if she's trained us to give her a treat each time we go in the laundry room.) In my opinion, any reaction from the animal is likely a reaction to our tone of voice and body language rather than a conscious understanding of what it means for a human to be ill. On the other hand, there are crazy examples of pets performing seemingly heroic acts to help people, so who knows?
Your post does not explain the quite obvious change in bahavior patterns as far as my cat is concerned Whilst I am confined to bed.
Yeah on a serious note they do, fuss the hell out of you if you are under the weather or generally not yourself. One of few reasons to put up having two dogs destroy my house
Im currently full of a horrible flu an my pet rock just stares at me clearly plotting how to increase my suffering. Serious note though. Last year when I left hospital after a nasty sting of ops an tests my friends guide dog kept coming over to me, usually he only does that if you have food considering I was still on semi liquid shakes id say theres something in the animal empathy thing.
Perhaps, but neither does your story discount the possibility that there could be another coincidental reason. It could be related to the fact that you are ill, but rather than the cat being concerned about your well being it could just be aware that its environment and routine have changed - therefore its behavior has changed accordingly. As a long time pet owner, I do get that occasional feeling that there is something more going on behind those eyes. It's only when the dog or cat barfs all over the floor that I remind myself that maybe it doesn't care all that much about me.
It's difficult to judge with mine, he's 18 years old and dribbles a lot. Whether I'm hale and hearty or afflicted with the dreaded lurgy he's snuggled up. Then again, I did hand rear the little furry *******!
Well I am feeling much better this morning and as far as I am concerned Millie has picked up on this and reverted to her normal behaviour of bothering me at 3.30am which she has always done. I will go so far as to suggests she knew I was feeling much better before I did as how would you explain her reverting to normal behaviour before I had even woken up. Perhaps it has something to do with smell does illness have an odour which animals can pick up up on. It is proven that dogs can smell some cancer tumors so perhaps there is some general smell associated with illness.
