Oscar, Who Was Intimately Acquainted with the Grim Reaper, Is Himself Betrayed and Killed Off by the Same Loathsome Ingrates That He Faithfully Served, Comforted, and Made Fabulously Rich and Famous for So Many Years

Oscar as a Handsome Five-Year-Old in 2010

"The truth is...I really don't like cats." 

-- David Dosa

Oscar, the gray, brown, and white tom who skyrocketed to international acclaim in 2007 when it was revealed that he possessed the uncanny ability to know when patients at a Rhode Island nursing home were about to die, has himself been killed off by the very same staffers that he spent his entire life dutifully serving and working alongside. Although the management of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in downtown Providence was far too dishonest to tell the ugly truth about his demise, the wording of its curt announcement left little doubt as to what had transpired.

"It is with sadness we announce that our pet therapy cat, Oscar, has passed away after seventeen wonderful years," the warehouse for the elderly, demented, and dying announced on its Facebook page at 1:15 p.m. on February 23rd. "Beloved by our community, he passed away with friends quietly, February 22, 2022."

Once a cat's strength begins to ebb or it has been seriously injured, his natural tendency is to secret himself away at some safe location. Whether he actually knows that the end is near or is simply seeking a secure spot in order to rest up and to, hopefully, eventually regain his former vigor by allowing his body time in order to heal itself is not known.

Although it does sometimes occur, normally a cat does not crawl into his guardian's lap with the expectation of that individual saving him. Consequently, for Oscar to have met his demise with "friends quietly" can only be interpreted that he was murdered by an unscrupulous veterinarian on the orders of those at Steere House who had betrayed him.

Even David Dosa, who began his long and illustrious career as a geriatrician at Steere House and, much more importantly, rose from obscurity to fame and fortune on Oscar's coattails, could not do any better than to parrot the corporate line peddled to an uncaring and undiscerning public by his former employer. "It gives me great sadness to announce that Oscar the cat has passed," is how that he so deftly put it February 23rd on his Facebook page, Oscar the Cat. "He died February 22nd after a short illness."

To have had so much as a semblance of credibility, Dosa would have needed to have disclosed both the nature of Oscar's illness as well as the circumstances surrounding his death. Although his statement was slightly more forthcoming than Steere House's stating, not once, but twice that he had "passed away," it nevertheless was hardly either adequate or truthful. 

Even though on Oscar's Facebook page he continues to shamelessly flog his twelve-year-old bestseller, Making Rounds with Oscar. The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat, as well as to brag about all the shekels that he is raking in off of it, and to tout his numerous appearances on the rubber chicken circuit for the Harper Collins' Speakers Bureau, he most assuredly was not shedding any tears over Oscar's cold-blooded murder. In fact, he had conveniently removed himself, and his precious shekels, from Oscar's life a very long time ago.

"In recent years, my professional path has not led me to Steere House on many occasions," he continued in the Facebook article while simultaneously conveniently neglecting to mention that he not only has served on its Board of Directors since 2010 and continues to work at Rhode Island Hospital across the street. "Still when I would drop by, Oscar always seemed to find me (not vice-versa) and say hello."

He hurriedly concluded his brief condolences by advising his followers who "want to read more about Oscar and anything planned for the cat (to) see the Steere House web site at..." Not surprisingly, that is a worthless link because the institution has not had anything further to say about Oscar on either its Facebook page or its web site following its February 23rd announcement.

His callousness is reminiscent of the attitude displayed by Elvis Presley's longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who upon learning of his client's death merely shrugged before predicting that he would be worth more to him dead than alive. After all, those individuals who are not the least bit troubled by the deaths of millions of cats each year are surely not about to shed so much as a solitary crocodile tear over the death of one feline, no matter how exceptional and faithful.

Dosa's indifference to Oscar's death was not unexpected given that he is an admitted lifelong cat-hater. "The truth is...I really don't like cats," he wastes little time in declaring on page ten of his book. "I had a bad experience with a cat while I was a kid and it left me a little traumatized."

If he is telling the truth instead of just making up stories, that is quite a confession. First of all, if he did have an unpleasant encounter with a cat as a child it is a sure bet that he did something that was either idiotic or cruel to the cat. Despite the malarkey spread by ailurophobes, a cat does not go around attacking a beast that is ten times its size.

Secondly, he should have gotten over that prejudice a long time ago. On the other hand, if he were either incapable or unwilling to confront his ailurophobia, he should have been placed on the couch and subjected to treatment as opposed to being allowed to lord it over cats and others. That is especially the case since he used to work at an institution that kept at least five other cats in addition to Oscar.

 Oscar Made His Rounds for More Than Sixteen Years

Not surprisingly, Dosa is a dog-lover. "I had a dog growing up and he was always by my side," he reveals on page nine.

Whereas there certainly is not anything wrong with that, everyone knows that cat fanciers and dog-lovers are completely different types of people. Dosa, however, has carried his ingrained prejudices against cats way too far.

Over the years, the nursing home has kept dozens of therapy cats and it is difficult to believe that it has willingly allowed any of them to have lived out their already all-too-brief lives to their natural conclusions. The only cat known to have beaten the corporatists at their evil little game was Henry who died in his sleep before they were able to have carried out their diabolical plan to kill him. At least that is the story that Dosa relates on pages forty-six through forty-nine of his tome.

In his case, the nursing home reportedly had the decency in order to have provided him with a memorial service, a hand-crafted wooden coffin, and a proper burial on the grounds of the estate. Given the institution's reticence regarding Oscar, it is feared that his remains were unceremoniously dumped in the trash and forgotten.

* * *

Born in 2005, Oscar spent the entire sixteen years and seven months of his life cruelly cooped up with the staffers and the demented, elderly, and dying at the Safe Haven Advanced Care Unit on the third floor. Reports differ but he apparently was shanghaied into a lifetime of naked exploitation and indentured servitude through either a newspaper advertisement or the machinations of an unidentified local shelter which dumped him at the death house shortly after his birth and then immediately washed its hands forever of both him and all concerns relating to his happiness and well-being.

Although since its founding in 1874, Steere House has cavalierly used, abused, and exploited dozens of cats, rabbits, and parrots, Oscar quickly demonstrated that he was special and he did so by taking a keen interest in those patients who, unbeknownst to even the nurses and geriatricians who worked there, were knocking on death's door. Specifically, he would crawl into their beds and remain with them until they had shuffled off their mortal coils.

Much to the chagrin of the medical profession, Oscar quickly showed that he knew considerably more about death than its highly paid members. In fact, by 2007 he already had accurately predicted twenty-five deaths and by 2010 that number had grown to fifty. By 2015, that total had risen to at least one-hundred.

Although far too dimwitted and ailurophobic to ever have been even remotely capable of appreciating the intrinsic value of any cat, let alone one as special as Oscar, Dosa was however astute enough to realize that he had unwittingly stumbled upon a proverbial gold mine and he accordingly went to work in order to cash in on his good fortune. He did so by first publishing an article entitled "A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat," which appeared in the July of 2007 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Three years later his groundbreaking tome appeared in bookstores. After that, the old cat-hater was in like Flynn and he, ironically, owed it all to Oscar.

"This is a cat that knows death," he tardily conceded to the Boston Globe on July 26, 2007. (See "With a Purr, Death Comes on Little Cat Feet.") "His instincts that a patient is to die are often more accurate than the instincts of medical professionals."

It was not the coarse as a cob Dosa, however, who first tumbled to Oscar's extraordinary powers but rather the far more observant and perceptive Mary Miranda, who works as a nurse on the third floor. "We've come to recognize him hopping on the bed as one indicator the end is very near," she vouched to the Globe. "Oscar's been consistently right."

In the beginning Dosa even went so far as to scoff at the very notion that a cat could predict death and he accordingly heaped nothing but scorn and derision upon Oscar's fair head. "Mary, he's a cat (and) cats don't do anything unless there's something in it for them," he swears on page nine of Making Rounds with Oscar. "He's probably just looking for some empty real estate and a warm blanket to sit on."

From there he went on to declare on page ten that Oscar "likes patients who are dying because they don't give him any trouble." Later on page sixty-eight he nonsensically speculates that Oscar, whom he earlier had alleged was not an especially friendly cat, was attracted to dying patients because of "the gathering of family (members), the holding of hands, (and) the saying of good-byes."

Oscar Conducting One of His Hundreds of Death Bed Vigils

Finally, when he was informed by Miranda that Oscar's death bed vigils left him emotionally and physically spent, all that he could do was to ladle on the sarcasm. "Sure...sitting on a bed sleeping is really hard work," he yucks it up on page twenty-eight.

Yet, Oscar was by no means the only cat capable of predicting death. Moreover, the taxing nature of his death bed vigils has been observed in other cats, such as a seventeen-year-old tortoiseshell named Sally who resides at Riverside Transitional Care in La Crosse.

"After a person passes away, she lays in that bed for two days and just sleeps," Janita Larson, a social worker at the nursing home, disclosed last year. "It's just like it takes everything out of her." (See Cat Defender post of June 3, 2022 entitled "Sally Continues to Work Selflessly and Tirelessly for the Demented and Dying at a Wisconsin Old Folks' Home Even as She Herself Approaches the Final Curtain in Her Own Life.")

Even if anyone should be so naïve and prejudiced as to buy into Dosa's sottise that Oscar was selfish, lazy, uncaring, and a lover of the easy life, that would at best only constitute a case of the kettle calling the pot black. Besides, unlike Dosa, Oscar never lined his pockets through his invaluable service to the elderly and dying. 

Even more importantly, he was always sincere, faithful, honest, and never disparaging and the same things most definitely cannot be said for Dosa. Above all, he never killed anyone and that is a statement that neither he nor Steere House will ever be able to truthfully utter.

The hundreds of patients that Oscar befriended and comforted during his long tenure do not come off as behaving much better than Dosa and staffers at Steere House in that they pretty much treated him as if he were part of the furnishings, such as a chair, a blanket, or a toy doll brought in for their own personal amusement. It thus would seem fair to conclude that, unlike a fine wine, human nature is generally not known to improve with age.

Furthermore, it is extremely doubtful that any of them ever once looked upon him as a sentient being endowed with a soul, feelings, and needs of his own that never were met. None of them most assuredly ever paused to contemplate that by cruelly imprisoning him for life in a death house that Steere House was robbing him of an opportunity to live the life of a normal cat.

For them, he never really was a cat at all but rather only an object of their naked exploitation. Like all the facility's other cats, rabbits, and parrots, Oscar meant absolutely nothing to any of them.

Interestingly enough, that apparently was not the way that some of them once had thought about cats. According to Dosa's interviews, some of them actually once liked cats when they were young but they then completely forgot about them once they had grown into adults.

Then oddly enough they reached out to Oscar and his mates once they found themselves confined in a nuthouse and on their last gasps. It thus would appear that it is primarily the very young and the dying that are capable of appreciating the value of a cat. The productive years on the other hand are reserved for fighting, grasping, domination, shekel accumulation, sex, and an indulgence in the baser passions.

A lack of mental development on one end of life's spectrum and impairment on the other end would also seem to factor prominently into that equation. For instance, Plato argues in the Timaeus that all individuals are born with a certain degree of brain damage that slowly dissipates over the years only to return with a vengeance later in life in the form of dementia.

It thus very well could be that empathy for cats and other animals is linked to underdeveloped, impaired, and feeble minds whereas those that are fully developed and hitting on all cogs are good for only selfishness and domination. (See Sage Journals, April 11, 2022, "The Development of Speciesism: Age-Related Differences in the Moral View of Animals.")

For family members, Oscar's sudden interest in their loved ones served as an early warning sign that they were rapidly nearing the end of their earthly journeys and that it was time to stop by and say good-bye. For instance, Jack McCullough of East Providence later expressed his appreciation for both the early notice as well as for the comfort that Oscar provided him when his mother died.

Oscar Was Anything but the Unfriendly Cat That Dosa Claims

"The staff was wonderful. But Oscar brought a special serenity to the room," he testified to the Boston Globe in the article cited supra. "What's more peaceful than a purring cat? What sounds more beautiful to fill one's ears when leaving this life?"

Yet there is not anything in the public record to even remotely suggest that any of them, including McCullough, ever viewed Oscar as being anything other than an inanimate object. The same held true for the world outside of Steere House.

If it had looked upon him differently, it would have demanded a long time ago that he received far better treatment and that his prerogatives as a cat were respected. Instead, he was viewed merely as a protagonist in just another cute cat story. 

The same phenomenon whereby institutions acquire and nakedly exploit cats in order to keep their inmates and workers occupied and entertained is by no means limited to nursing homes but rather it can be observed in, inter alia, penal institutions, the public schools, the degree mills, on military bases, libraries, the halls of government, hotels, theatres, museums, garden shops, and zoos. In just about all such instances the cats are treated pretty much like dirt and once they have outlived their usefulness to their gaolers they are unceremoniously killed off without so much as a second thought.

Moreover, many of them, like Oscar, had become quite famous during their lives but even that was not sufficient in order to have saved them. (See Cat Defender posts of November 2, 2006, May 19, 2014, November 21, 2012, August 6, 2007, December 7, 2006, August 1, 2016, December 5, 2011, September 20, 2018, September 22, 2020, January 15, 2015, May 19, 2014, and April 12, 2013 entitled, respectively, "A Three-Legged, Bobtailed Cat Named Opie Melts the Hearts of the Hardened Criminals at a Rural Tennessee Prison," "Even after Fourteen Years of Faithful Companionship and Exemplary Service, the Teachers, Students, and Administrators at Westbrook High School Remain Clueless as to Simba's Intrinsic Value," "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT," "In a Marked Departure from Its Cat Killing Ways, the United States Air Force Hires Wizzo as Head Mouser at One of Its California Warehouses," "After Nineteen Years of Faithful Service and Companionship, the Ingrates at an Iowa Library Murder Dewey Readmore Books," "Unmercifully Maligned and Treated Like Dirt for So Many Years, Larry Nevertheless Manages to Stick Around Long Enough in Order to See the Last of David Cameron and His Uncaring Family," "The Algonquin Cruelly Responds to Threats Made by New York City by Trussing Up Matilda III and Bombarding Her with Shock Therapy," "Pirate Pleasantly Surprises the Thespians at Bush Theatre by Turning Up after a Six-Month Absence but He Is Far from Being Out of the Woods Just Yet," "Snitch Is Found Alive Fourteen Years after His Disappearance but His Old Owner Refuses to Take Him Back in Spite of the Shameful Neglect Shown Him by His New Caretaker," "Lewis, Ann  Arbor's Much Celebrated Garden Cat, Departs This World Under Highly Suspicious Circumstances," and "Arnie of the Linton Zoo Is Remembered as a Wonderfully Loving and Charismatic Cat Who Gave Back Far More Than He Received During His All-Too-Brief Sojourn Upon This Earth.") 

In a particularly egregious arrangement, the Annapolis Maritime Museum (AMM) unforgivably allowed one of it working cats, Miss Pearl, to be savagely killed by an unleashed dog in early December of 2020. Not having learned anything from its past mistakes with her, it soon thereafter adopted another cat, Mac, that it is now in the process of slowly killing by feeding him way too much of the wrong grub.

In both instances, the humane groups who supplied the cats, the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter with Miss Pearl and the SPCA of Anne Arundel County with Mac, never exercised any oversight; both agencies simply dumped the cats and afterwards said the hell with them. The only thing positive that can be said for working cat programs is that they do save lives but not necessarily for all that long of a period of time and the cats themselves seldom if ever are treated with the level of care that they so richly deserve. (See Cat Defender post of April 30, 2022 entitled "Relegated to the Dustbin of History and All but Forgotten by the Grossly Negligent Annapolis Maritime Museum, Miss Pearl's Beautiful Soul Continues to Cry Out from the Grave for Justice.")  

It would be useless to issue an appeal to rescue groups, the coppers, and politicians to enshrine in law the right of all cats to live and for them to exercise their due diligence in order to ensure that institutions such as Steere House and the AMM took proper care of their working cats. By default that leaves their safety, care, and right to live in the hands of those individuals and institutions who are currently enslaving, exploiting, neglecting, and killing them with impunity.

In his book De la démocratie en Amérique, Alexis de Tocqueville devotes a considerable amount of ink and space to discussing self-interest rightly understood but such considerations certainly did not play any role in how that Steere House treated Oscar. In that regard, it is important to point out that Dosa was by no means the only one to have profited handsomely from Oscar's remarkable work.

Specifically, there can be little denying that he was unquestionably the best goodwill ambassador that Steere House ever had just as Sally is the best advertisement for Riverside Transitional Care. C'est-à- dire, numerous individuals sans doute would have dumped their elderly relatives elsewhere if it had not been for all the public acclaim that the facility had received thanks to Oscar.

Yet, in spite of all the money that he brought in to their coffers, that still was insufficient to warm the cold and calloused hearts of staffers and management and thus to still their killing hands. Perhaps they belong to that rare group of birds who love the smell and taste of innocent feline blood far more so than they do collecting greenbacks. 

The picture that emerges from just about all working cat arrangements is not a particularly flattering one. Rather, it once again exposes man to be little more than a selfish and exploitative monster who is thoroughly incapable of developing any regard for either anyone or anything other than himself. He additionally is an ingrate without peer.

As far as the all-important issue of how that Oscar worked his magic is concerned, no one seems to know for sure even after all these years. One school of thought maintains that he used his keen sense of smell in order to detect certain aromas that the dying emit.

Despite Showing His Age, Oscar's Dedication Never Once Waned

That does not adequately explain, however, why that only him, Sally, and possibly a handful of other cats are endowed with this remarkable talent. That could be attributable to the fact that cats only recently have been relegated to nursing homes and in that light the special talents possessed by Oscar and Sally may one day be proven not to have been all that rare.

In fact, at the Episcopal Church Home in St. Paul, a large yellow male named Ollie also was capable of predicting the arrival of the Grim Reaper. He came to the old folks' home in November of 2009 and was "retired," most assuredly with a jab of sodium pentobarbital, in July of 2019.  (See the St. Paul Pioneer Press, September 25, 2010, "St. Paul Cat Seems to Know When Nursing Home Residents Will Die" and episcopalhomes.org, July 10, 2019, "Saying Good-bye to a Caring Cat Companion.") 

Also, some cats may simply be endowed with keener senses of smell. For example, some humans have sharper minds, keener eyesight, and better hearing than others.

The other most logical explanation is that cats are psychic. In that light, anyone who has ever bothered to intimately get to know one fully understands that to be a real possibility.

Regardless of how that he did it, Oscar's ability was not without its sophistication. First of all, Dosa relates on pages one-hundred-twenty-one and one-hundred-twenty-two of his book that when two patients were nearing the end he was able to determine which one would die first.

Secondly, even several weeks after a dying patient had been removed from Steere House in favor of the Rhode Island Hospital across the street, he nevertheless began a vigil on the man's empty bed the day that he died. "In dim light I recognized the shape of a cat," Dosa relates on page one-hundred-seventy-six. "Oscar had started his vigil without the patient."

For a man of science like Dosa, however, being forced to admit that Oscar was far more intelligent that he is has been a bitter pill for him to swallow. "Science has taken us a long way in our profession, but we still just scratch the surface. The rest remains a mystery," he was forced into admitting on page one-hundred-twenty of his book. "Maybe some people just know when their time has come. Some cats, too."

Later on page two-hundred-nineteen he throws up his hands in defeat. "I don't really pretend to know the nature of Oscar's special gift. I am not an animal behaviorist nor have I rigorously studied the why and how of his behavior," he concedes. "Whether he is motivated by a refined sense of smell, a special empathy, or something entirely different, your guess is as good as mine." (See Cat Defender posts of July 30, 2007 and May 27, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Visit from Oscar Means That the Grim Reaper Cannot Be Far Behind for the Terminally Ill at a Rhode Island Nursing Home" and "When Lovers, Friends, Health, and All Hope Have Vanished, Oscar Is There for Those Who Have No One and Nothing Left.") 

* * *

The last dozen or so years of Oscar's all-too-brief life were shrouded in secrecy. Dosa's Facebook page contains more than anyone would ever want to know about his book, pubic appearances, dementia, and his numerous vacation trips but practically nothing about Oscar.

Steere House likewise was loath to give out any information concerning him over the telephone. Even more perplexing, he rarely was ever mentioned on its Facebook page.

A January 31, 2010 post does, however, mention a visit from a French film crew. "Oscar was quite the ham today. Pretty much gave them everything they asked for," it began. "Last week another crew came and Oscar ran behind a cabinet and refused to come out. Gotta love cats...They do what they do."

A February 15, 2010 post speaks of him as having had a rather busy day. "Oscar was pretty beat today. Was fast asleep on his favorite chair apparently dreaming (because he kept flailing his legs)."

The next entry in the log did not appear until March 29, 2011 and it reads like it could have been penned by Dosa. "Checked in with Oscar yesterday at the NH(?)," it began. "He is doing well and looking good. Give him a pet for everyone."

The next post came on November 14, 2011. "Wanted to give people an Oscar update. He is doing well on the third floor where he continues to do his thing," it stated. "Much friendlier these days -- even let me pet him. Will try to post an updated picture soon."

After that, Oscar completely disappeared from the radar screen and the public was forced into waiting more than four years before it heard anything further about him. "Oscar's story is unique. Eleven years old now, Oscar still lives on the third floor where he continues to play an invaluable role in patients' end-of-life care...," a February 23, 2016 post blandly stated without any reference whatsoever to what had transpired during the intervening years. "At Steere House, we believe in the therapeutic benefit of animal companionship."

 Oscar Was Still Looking Well on June 27, 2016

A June 3, 2016 post features a photograph of him on a blanket that was part of a campaign designed to add colorful bedding to the rooms of the inmates. "Oscar seems to love it," was all that the entry had to say about him.

A post six days later on June 9th contains another photograph of Oscar but merely exclaims, "Why, hello, Oscar!!!"

The next entry did not appear until February 6, 2018 and it contained a photograph of him at a meeting of the Board of Directors. "Hello all. Haven't posted in a while. Still doing well although I take a few more naps these days," it disclosed. "Here I am at a recent board meeting making sure my humans do all the right things."

A September 24, 2018 post stated simply: "Hello all. Still hanging out at Steere House!"

After that, the public was forced to wait almost three years before Steere House delivered its final update on him before it announced his death earlier this year. That post came on June 29, 2021 and stated only "Greetings from Oscar the cat!" along with noting that he would turn sixteen years old sometime in July.

A sad and final telephone call was placed to the death house on September 6th of last year but the only information that it was able to elicit was that Oscar was still there and that his health was "okay."

Steere House's totally inexcusable four-year and four-month silence concerning him that lasted from 2011 until 2016 was not explained until March 30, 2015 and even then it came courtesy of The Mirror of London rather than his caretakers. It seems that Oscar had suffered a serious allergic reaction to some undisclosed substance in November of 2013 that had necessitated him being placed in intensive care at an unidentified surgery.

Even worse, his magnanimous heart actually had stopped beating and he died for several seconds. Mercifully, the attending veterinarian was able to have restarted it but even after he had been returned to Steere House it took him several months in order to recover. (See " 'Miracle' Cat Predicts Deaths of One-Hundred People in Nursing Home.")

As best it could be determined, cats are susceptible to flea, seasonal (pollen, grass, fungi, mold, and dust), environmental, and food allergies but the first two of which likely can be eliminated because Oscar spent his entire life indoors. (See WebMD, February 23, 2021, Cat Allergies, Symptoms, Causes, Treatments, Diagnosis.")

An environmental allergen, however, is a distinct possibility given that Oscar could have been sickened by  cleaning products, perfumes, cigarette smoke, chemicals used on furniture in order to retard the growth of mold during shipping and storage, and countless other toxins. (See Cat Defender posts of August 22, 2007, October 19, 2007, September 15, 2010, and October 21, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Indoor Cats Are Dying from Diabetes, Hyperthyroidism, and Various Toxins in the Home," "Smokers Are Killing Their Cats, Dogs, Birds, and Infants by Continuing to Light Up in Their Presence," "Shy and Huli Buli Go into Convulsions and Wind Up in the Hospital for Four Days after They Are Doused with a Topical Flea Insecticide," and "Two Thoughtless Old Biddies Crush Thirteen-Month-Old Sheba to Death Underneath an Electric Recliner.") 

In addition to robbing him of his freedom, a life of his own, and the benefits of fresh air, Oscar could have unwittingly either inhaled or licked up almost any toxin in a place like Steere House. Medicine manufactured for humans would have been one possibility and visiting relatives could have brought in almost anything and carelessly left it lying within easy reach of him.

As far as food allergies are concerned, the most common ones that affect cats involve beef, fish, and milk products and there no doubt were plenty of those items readily on hand at Steere House. Besides, individuals who are not well acquainted with cats have been known to feed them almost anything regardless of the consequences.

Since as far as it is known, the nursing home never has publicly disclosed that Oscar was ever even ill, it is not about to reveal what exactly it was that damn near killed him. The incident does, however, call into question its suitability to house and to care for any cat.

First of all, although not much has been publicly divulged about what Steere House fed him, he apparently was forced to subsist on kibble and water. "It's not like he dawdles. He'll slip out for two minutes, grab some kibble, and then he's back at the patient's side," Miranda disclosed to The Telegraph of London on February 1, 2010. (See "Cat Predicts Fifty Deaths in Rhode Island Nursing Home.") "It's like he's literally on a vigil."

 Oscar at a Board of Directors Meeting in February of 2018

Not only has dry food been linked to urinary tract infections but, being obligate carnivores, cats need to be fed a wide variety of meats that come in different styles, such as pates, sauces, and those that have been grilled. Despite what the critics claim, most of them love a little milk from time to time.

Above all, since a cat relies so heavily upon his sense of smell, the meats that he is fed need to be aromatic, of good quality, and served in a container to his liking. Secondly, someone also should have been brushing his fur every day because doing so eliminates, inter alia, loose hairs that if not removed can be in turn ingested during grooming and accordingly lead to the development of hairballs. Oscar's teeth also should have been brushed daily even at the risk of his caretaker being accidentally bitten.

Thirdly, he needed to have been provided with a secure and quiet place of his own where he could sleep and relax without being interrupted. At Steere House, however, he had been relegated to grabbing a few winks here and there in a linen closet, at the nurses' station, and on top of medical records.

Fourthly, since cats crave and need mental and physical stimulation, it would have been easy enough for someone at the facility to have come up with games to have played with him. Furthermore, he could have been trained to walk in a harness and on a leash and that would have allowed him access to fresh air and the big, wide, and living world that existed outside the death house.

Fifthly, if one could have been found that was halfway competent and not a cat-hater, an occasional trip to a  veterinarian would not have been a bad idea. Clearly, the proper care of a cat, even an exclusively indoor one, involves considerably more than putting down cheap kibble and water twice a day.

Even if staffers could have been prevailed upon to have provided Oscar with the compassionate and attentive care that he deserved, there is not any way of getting around the sobering conclusion that a nursing home is hardly a fitting environment for a cat. To begin with, all such facilities positively reek of rot, decay, diseases, hopelessness and, above all, death.

Secondly, they are inhabited by primarily crazy, irrational individuals who in turn are visited by their equally stressed-out and sometimes difficult to deal with family members. Thirdly, a cat such as Oscar easily could have been trampled underfoot and seriously injured by all the hustle and bustle involved in ferrying patients about the facility and to nearby Rhode Island Hospital. Steere House even has admitted to sometimes forcibly removing him from his death bed vigils.

Above all, life is for the living and that realization applies as much to cats as it does to humans. The burden of caring for the elderly accordingly falls upon the likes of Steere House and Dosa; after all, they are the ones who are bringing home the big bucks. Cats such as Oscar, Sally, and Ollie belong in proper homes with loving owners. 

Given the paucity of information available, it is impossible to determine how that Steere House treats its inmates. Nonetheless, it apparently keeps the malfeasance, medical malpractice, and gross negligence that John Grisham found at Quiet Haven in his 2009 short-story collection, the Ford County Stories, to a minimum.

The institution also appears to have come through the pandemic in considerably better shape than did nursing homes in New York State. (See Cat Defender post of April 10, 2021 entitled "Andrew Mark Cuomo, a Sworn Enemy of Both Cats and Their Supporters, Is Finally Exposed as a Mass Murderer of the Elderly as Well as a Serial Abuser of Women.")

Looking back over the course of Oscar's life, it is difficult to get around the conclusion that Dosa, staffers, and everybody else even remotely connected to Steere House cared absolutely nothing about him and his happiness. Rather, they exploited him to the hilt, neglected him unmercifully, and once he became ill they wasted little time in betraying his trust by paying an unscrupulous veterinarian to kill him off.

If that were all that they had done, that would have been horrific enough in its own right but they did considerably more harm. Through their abject unwillingness to have done anything beneficial for him, they additionally have failed to elevate the status of cats everywhere.

Consequently, the indefensible example that they have set is destined to be employed in order to fuel the continued exploitation, abuse, and killing off of countless more cats everywhere. As one might expect, it is none other than the old cat-hater himself, Dosa, who is already hard at work egging on the exploiters and killers.

"Somewhat strangely, my book about Oscar has become required reading in many gerontology programs around the country," he crowed like a bantam rooster in his February 23rd eulogy on Facebook. "Each student who reads about Oscar and his exploits continues his legacy and I suspect there are many more cats running around long-term care facilities as a result of his presence."

Oscar Deserved to Have Been Allowed to Go on Living

That is quite a load for even someone as full of it as him to have spat out. First of all, considering how horribly that he and Steere House treated Oscar, locking up additional cats inside old folks' homes is simply a monstrous proposal.

As far as his tome is concerned, it is anything but a good read simply because it has so very little to do with Oscar. Rather, Dosa has relegated him to the periphery as a rather shadowy figure who from time to time drifts in and out of the narrative much like puffs of smoke periodically escaping from a chimney. For those individuals who are still capable of appreciating the animal that Leonardo da Vinci long ago anointed as "nature's masterpiece," they would be far better served by turning to Takashi Hiraide's moving account of the short and tragic life of Chibi that is contained in his I-novel, The Guest Cat, as well as to John Gray's pioneering effort, Feline Philosophy. Cats and the Meaning of Life.

Shortchanging Oscar and all cats does, however, free Dosa in order to blow a trumpet for himself and his  tribe. For example, large sections of chapters four, five, six, fourteen, twenty, twenty-two, and twenty-four are devoted to Frank and Ruth Rubenstein and the Shoah, a whopping total of thirty-two pages in all, and that is considerably more space and ink than he gives to Oscar.

In that regard, Dosa's thinking and behavior are every bit as nauseatingly predictable as the workings of a clock. If his intention were to have penned a piece of tribal propaganda, he should have gone ahead and done so from the outset without dragging Oscar into his machinations and, worst still, defaming him in the process.

Even the capitalistic media, which feasted on Oscar during his heyday, could not be even bothered with reporting his murder. By default, that leaves only a plaque donated by a local hospice to remind visitors to the third floor of Steere House that he even so much as once graced the face of this earth.

"For his compassionate hospice care, this plaque is awarded to Oscar the Cat," it reads. Unfortunately, even it is not of any real consequence given that very few individuals from the outside world are destined to ever see it, at least while they still have their marbles.

A far more befitting epithet for him would be: "Oscar, the cat who was there for everyone who ever needed him, but when his chips were down no one was there for him."

Lamentably, even though Oscar lived a relatively long life for a cat, the world outside of Steere House was  told almost nothing about him. For starters, who were his parents and where was he born? Who were his siblings and what became of them?

More than likely, he never was given an opportunity to have gotten to know any of them. Every bit as regrettable, since he reportedly began his death bed vigils shortly after his arrival at Steere House, he was deprived of even having a kittenhood.

Absolutely noting is known about his personal tastes, such as what foods he liked and if he enjoyed sleeping in laps. As far as his personality is concerned, all the world has been left with are Dosa's libels.

"Friendly! He damned near tried to maul me!" he exclaims on page nine of his book.

To her credit Miranda was not quite so easily fooled. "God, you're a baby," she retorts on page ten. "He barely even touched you."

Now that he is gone it is way too late to restore to him all that Dosa and Steere House stole. While it is no doubt true that his memory may endure for a while in the gerontology classes that Dosa teaches at Brown University, it is sure to be a jaundiced picture hopelessly contaminated by his lies, prejudices, and tribal propaganda.

Photos: the Daily Mail (Oscar in 2010), Stew Milne of the Associated Press (Oscar in a corridor and wearing a blue collar), Dina Rudick of the Boston Globe (Oscar holding a vigil), Steere House (Oscar with a woman and an elderly Oscar), and Facebook (Oscar in 2016 and 2018).

Sally Continues to Work Selflessly and Tirelessly for the Demented and Dying at a Wisconsin Old Folks' Home Even as She Herself Approaches the Final Curtain in Her Own Life

Lovely Sally Has Been Comforting the Aged and Dying for Seventeen Years

 "Sally would know when someone was passing away and we would find them (sic) on the back of their chair for no apparent reason or she would just start being in their room and she's never been in their room before. And then they would actively begin to die."

-- Janita Larson

"Life is a moderately good play with a poorly written third act," is how that Truman Capote once summed up the human condition. No one wants to grow old, to lose their strength of both body and mind, and to ultimately descend into oblivion but that is the inevitable consequences of being mortal.

At least the one-hundred or so individuals who reside at Riverside Transitional Care on the banks of the Mississippi River in La Crosse have Sally in order to help them get through the third and final acts of their lives. She is neither a geriatrician nor a Bible thumper, however, but rather a seventeen-year-old tortoiseshell who resides at the long-term care facility and has magnanimously devoted her entire life to doing for the elderly, demented, and dying what neither they nor modern medicine can do for them.

"She sensed that mom was dying and she got off my lap and went and laid on the bed. I was there with mom for two days and Sally never left unless someone came in and did comfort care," Kris Fry, who lost her mother in 2019, recalled to WXOW-TV of La Crosse last August 30th. (See "Sally the Cat Comforts Dementia Patients at the End of Their Life (sic).") "She was right there even after mom passed. She didn't leave. She stayed there."

Although there is not really anything that can compensate for the loss of a loved one, especially a mother, Sally and her comforting presence did at least make the distressing situation somewhat more bearable for Fry. "It was a very peaceful passing. I am very grateful for it," she continued to WXOW-TV. "It was a wonderful thing to have happen at a time when you're having a hard time saying goodbye and to have that memory of this wonderful thing that happened with this cat, it takes some of the stings away."

In that respect, Sally's ministrations to the survivors are, arguably, every bit as important as the comfort that she brings to the dying. "Sally came in and got on my lap and walked right up to my chin and put her shoulder right on my neck because I was feeling bad," Fry related. "I was shedding a few tears."

Sandra Rockwell is another believer in Sally. In fact, she has been brightening the days of her one-hundred-one-year-old mother, Hazel, for the past four years.

"It gives me a lot of comforts. She talks about Sally and she knows Sally will lay in her lap and she does," she confided to WXOW-TV. "She really enjoys having the cat around."

Sally with, Most Likely, a Resident and a Visitor

Not only that but Sally is not the least bit timid about intervening in emergencies. "My mom took a really bad fall here almost a month ago (July of 2021) and I think Sally was around her a bit more," Rockwell added. "I think she senses when she needs to comfort people more." 

In addition to showering both patients and their families with unconditional love and devotion, Sally is the best goodwill ambassador that the Lutheran-run facility could ever desire. For instance, given that Hazel always has been a huge fan of the species, Sally's presence helped to reassure her devoted daughter that moving her into Riverside had been the right decision.

As wonderful and comforting as those invaluable contributions may be, Sally is perhaps better known for her uncanny ability to predict the arrival of the Grim Reaper. "Sally would know when someone was passing away and we would find them (sic) on the back of their chair for no apparent reason or she would just start being in their room and she's never been in their room before," social worker Janita Larson, who has been at the facility every bit as long as Sally, told WXOW-TV. "And then they would actively begin to die."

Although providing comfort to the dying may appear from afar to be a piece of cake for a cat, that is hardly  the case. "After a person passes away, she lays in that bed for two days and just sleeps," Larson disclosed to WXOW-TV. "It's like it takes everything out of her."

It is not as if Sally is bored and therefore has nothing better to do with her time because residents of the dementia ward, where she spends a lion's share of her time, have problems other than dying. "In the afternoon we have a little anxiousness or a little agitation but oddly enough Sally seems to know who are the people that might go into crisis and sure enough you're gonna find her on their lap," Larson explained to WXOW-TV.

Over the course of the seventeen years that Sally has been faithfully serving both residents and staffers, the facility has received only one complaint about her presence and that came from a male relative of a patient who hated cats. Considering how many ailurophobes that there are in this world, that in itself is rather remarkable.

Given her advanced years, Sally is rapidly running out of time herself and that disturbing reality raises numerous end-of-life issues. Most importantly, will Riverside be willing to pony up for her veterinary care once her health begins to fail her or will it take the cheap and easy way out by taking her to a veterinarian in order to be killed off?

Sally's Job Often Leaves Her Physically and Mentally Drained

Even if she should reach a point whereby she is no longer capable of properly caring for herself, let alone the facility's dementia patients, will one of the staffers that she has worked alongside for almost two decades, such as Larson, be willing to take her home and to provide her with a safe and loving environment in order to live out her dwindling days? To put the matter succinctly, will Riverside be willing to respect her right to live and thereby extend to her the same compassionate and tender care that she has bestowed upon its paying customers for so long?

Whether or not Riverside is willing to acknowledge it, it owes Sally at least that much, especially considering that she has given up her entire life as a cat in order to toil away for it and for practically nothing in return to boot. First of all, since she apparently was brought to the facility as a kitten, she has been forced to spend her entire life locked up indoors.

In that light, it is doubtful that she ever has felt the warmth of the sun on her lovely face, frollicked in the green grass, or even so much as chased a bug. She quite obviously has been sterilized and that has deprived her of not only a sex life but also of having kittens of her own.

Sadly, she is the last of her line in that her genes are destined to die with her. There are not going to be any little tortoiseshells who resemble her and bring back memories of how that she used to behave.

Being cooped up with the demented and dying likewise has deprived her of the companionship of other cats. Although Riverside does keep an unspecified number of other therapy cats, that is not quite the same thing as allowing her to freely choose her companions.

Perhaps saddest of all, she never has had either a home of her own or an owner who loved her to bits. It is not, however, too late for Riverside to rectify that gross injustice and it could easily do so by placing her in a loving home where her right to live will be held as sacrosanct and she will be allowed to live out her remaining days and to die at time and place of her own choosing.

That is no less than what she so richly deserves. Besides, it is long overdue that Lutherans and all Christians  stopped looking down their long, dirty schnozes at cats and other animals as being inferior and expendable beings and instead began treating them as beings entitled to at least as much compassion as they extend to their fellow believers.

Above all, cats such as Sally never should be used, abused, and nakedly exploited as a source of cheap  labor and then afterwards murdered and their remains tossed out in the trash like yesterday's newspapers. Furthermore, individuals and institutions that mistreat cats in such a cavalier fashion never should be allowed to adopt them in the first place.

Photos: WXOW-TV.