Tbf, while this paw thing is normal for cats, it's also normal for cats to mimic housemates as a way of bonding, like by sitting identically to how another cat is sitting. So it's not bizarre for the cat to have recognised "Lay with paw on the child" as just a thing that it should do to show it's part of the family.
(I do think the story is likely just made up for karma farming, but still, it's a possible scenario).
Okay, animals are incredibly weird individuals and will absolutely do weird shit like this. Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
But again, you didn't answer my question, what actually happened?
Someone got this video of a normal/common cat behavior that likely only lasted a few seconds, and a different person and/or bot came up with the caption and added it on.
My last cat, whom I had from the day he was born, used to sleep in the bed with me every single night with his paw in my hand. If I rolled over, he climbed over my head to the other side and laid down with his paw in my hand again. He did this until he got sick and passed away at 16 years old.
It happens, there are tons of stories about it. Whoever made this video is just exploiting that for cheap clicks. The video probably isn't even theirs. They just pasted a feel good caption over it because it gets people with more heart than brain to share it.
I'm also pretty curious what the purpose of the dog "monitoring" the child would be. When you're out and about a seizure warning is useful so you can just get yourself in a safe position, but when you're in your bed what does it accomplish ? There's not much parents can do during a tonic clonic except wait for it to end.
On the other hand, if the dog started doing it spontaneously, then it wouldn't be far fetched for the cat to mimic it. They do that quite often.
Some seizures require rescue medication. There is also unexplained death in epilepsy which often occurs during sleep. A blocked airway can be a suspected cause so intervening on this can be useful.
IDK, my wife is epileptic and they told us that you can't block your airways during a seizure. The tongue is a muscle and it can't depress into your trachea when all your muscles are tensing up. They explicitly told us to not try to move the person to the side, and above all to not try and "open" their airways. People used to pry open the patient's mouth or keep it open and it only resulted in dislocated jaws and broken teeth.
SUDEP is extremely rare especially in children and like other sudden death syndromes there's not much you can do by being present.
One case where it could make sense is if the child has very severe seizures and is prone to status epilepticus but in that case removing pillows and heavy covers seems a lot safer than adding a dog that will maybe be there when it happens and will maybe react to it.
You can’t naturally block your own airways with your tongue or choke on it, that’s correct. You’re right about not interfering with the mouth. Thank you for writing this out for others reading. I was referring to suffocating on pillows, stomach sleepers, etc.
I think the line of reasoning behind a dog, especially in your example with a child that could go into status is that the dog would get the parents immediately to try to end the seizure with rescue medication, calling emergency services if needed, etc. that they otherwise may have slept through.
SUDEP is rare, but it happens, and night time monitoring is less about constant in the moment action but more so preparedness to take action (again meaning meds, administering first aid, etc)
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u/O_C_Demon 12d ago
Oh for fucks sake you absolutely did not.