While most Americans know the game as "soccer", the rest of the world calls it "football".

Dagger was most likely the British Columbian sub-species of cougar, as they are the largest and arguably most aggressive. They are winter cats. They /love/ the winter.

Dagger didn't play often. In the summer, it was too blasted hot to do anything but lay around. But in the winter, he had hours and hours of fun with his big, plastic ball. He'd bat it around in his cage and have and endless football game! And let me tell ya, he could make that ball fly!

Dagger was very smart, and that was never so apparent as when he'd get his ball trapped somewhere, such as in his lock-out area, or under his ramp. It didn't daunt him at all. If it whizzed into his lock-out, he'd just traipse right on in after it, pick it up in his teeth, and walk back out into the main cage. Then, he'd drop it, and send it flying! If it was under his ramp, same thing; he'd just flop down and creep forward until he could get his teeth into the hold and he'd pull it out, stand back up, drop it, and continue on right where he'd left off.

To this photo is of Dagger and his endless football game. He had such fun with that poor ball! I still have the ball. It's old, dirty, and scared, but still profoundly sacred, just like I think it was to him.

This picture was taken 13-May-03. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 10D and the EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens. The original was taken at full frame of 3072x2048x24b, ISO eqv 400, 1/350 shutter, f/5.6. This image was shrunken down for space conservation.

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.