While there are "better" pictures in my library of Dagger, few bring out more joy in me than this one. This is cropped from the original as I really hate having cage visible in my photos.

Dagger was probably one of the more misunderstood cats that I've worked with. He was very temperamental, and because of abuse and some horrible environments, he didn't trust people. I'm not sure I can blame him. His large size (he was an almost 240lb monster of a cougar) and always terse face made him horribly intimidating to most people, but for those he was close to, he was quite the cat. I count myself lucky to've been on of those people

In this picture, I've always anthropomorphized Dagger as sticking his tongue out and blowing the proverbial raspberry at humanity as a whole. In that light, this photo had brought me many moments of humor and joy. In reality, Dagger's laying down next to the cage wall, eating the grass that would grow there. If you look close, you can see some grass tid-bits under his whiskers. :)

Dagger was singularly unique, IMHO, as out of all the cougars I've worked with in my now 24-years of study and hands-on work with big cats, he has the most noble and elegant face. His "moustache" is very prominent, but rather than only being on the sides like most cougars', his goes right over the bridge of his nose. Also, I've never seen a cougar with more beautiful eyes. Dagger's eyes were just...gorgeous. Very cliche'ish word, I know, but nothing else works.

Dagger left this life behind, 31-Dec-04. After working for almost 6 years in rehabilitating him to be social with humanity again, it was a very devastating blow for me. I was heartbroken, to put it mildly. The good news is, I have lots and lots of pictures of him, and slowly, I'm pulling them out, and gazing upon them, and now that some time has passed, I'm finding that they don't hurt so bad to look at any more. Once again, I am just filled with a sense of awesome majesty, that I got to be in the presence, and call myself "friend" to a truly magnificent beast.

Dagger was a one-of-a-kind, so you might also see this one as one of my avatars.

Disclaimer: I hate to have to put this on here, but the pic is copyright me. Please do not distribute, copy, alter, etc, without my permission. Having said all that, feel free to download and use it for your own inspiration.