Best Animal Omens Post

The Animal Omens cases readers rated highest and believed most — the jury's all-time picks.

1. My Dog Kept Pressing His Nose to the Same Spot on My Side

   This is not a dramatic story. Nobody died. I am writing it because I nearly did, and because a dog is the reason I did not, and I think that…

   176 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story

2. A Black Dog Walked Beside Me the Night My Brother Died

   I have kept this to myself for eleven years. I am writing it down now because my mother passed recently and she was the only other person wh…

   171 Upvote · 67% of readers believe this story

3. A Robin Came Inside the House the Day My Father Died

   My father did not believe in signs. He was a plumber for forty years and his religion was that things had causes you could find if you got d…

   168 Upvote · 69% of readers believe this story

4. A Crow Tapped My Grandmother's Window Every Day of Her Last Week

   My grandmother spent her last week at home, in the front bedroom, with the family taking turns to sit with her. She was dying, gently, of be…

   163 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story

5. The Magpies Gathered on Our Roof the Morning of the Fire

   My grandmother grew up on a farm in County Mayo and she carried the old ways with her the way other people carry a wallet. Salt over the sho…

   154 Upvote · 75% of readers believe this story

6. The Owl That Sat on the Fence Post for Three Nights

   I was staying at my uncle Ray's smallholding the summer he died, helping with the animals because his hip had gone and he could not manage t…

   149 Upvote · 71% of readers believe this story

7. The House Sparrows Battered the Window for an Hour Before the Call

   I had a feeling that whole day, and I want to start there, because the birds were the second strange thing, not the first. I woke up wrong. …

   145 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story

8. The Cows Would Not Go Down to the River That Morning

   My family have farmed the same river valley for four generations, and if there is one thing you can set your watch by it is cattle going to …

   141 Upvote · 66% of readers believe this story

9. Our Budgie Stopped Singing Three Days Before My Nan Went Into Hospital

   Pip was my nan's budgie, a blue one, and he was the loudest, happiest bird you ever heard. He sang from the moment the cover came off in the…

   138 Upvote · 69% of readers believe this story

10. The Night Our Cat Would Not Leave My Mother's Door

    We got Biscuit when I was nine, and for fourteen years she treated my mother like a piece of furniture that occasionally filled the food bow…

    132 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story

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