My little brother named him because he was completely black, and we both were fans of 'The Jungle Books'. (He didn't want to use 'Bagheera'... damn it.)
My father brought him home from a friend who found him on the side of the road. My mother, who had sworn since we were born that she was not going to have an animal inside the house, finally relented because the cat needed help. He was unable to walk. We took him to the vet and learned that he had a pinched nerve in his back which meant he could not move his legs. He could stand upright, and he would walk with his front legs and kind of hop with his back ones to get around. He was also sweet and fearless and won everyone over immediately. As time passed, he regained the use of his back legs and by the time he was just over a year old, it was as if he had never had an issue at all. BUT, that constant over use of his front legs now meant he looked like a pit bull. Then, we got him fixed and instead of getting fat, he just got bigger. This cat was almost 14" at the shoulder once he was fully grown.
One day, I was sitting in the den watching television and Panther was outside lounging in the grass of the backyard. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. There were two Dobermans running into my back yard from the field behind our house. See, there was a house about eight doors down that raised them for various uses and those dogs were always getting out. So, I am now watching two dogs, one brown and one black, wander into the yard. They did not see Panther at first. He saw them immediately. He slowly got up and stood watching them. Suddenly, the both saw him and charged over, expecting the cat to 'run to and fro and make sport'. Panther did not run. He arched his back some and hissed as they approached. They stopped, confused. This cat was not running? They looked at each other. I could just hear the unspoken conversation.
"What should we do?"
"I know, let me shove my nose at him and that will make him run!"
So, the brown one turns and sticks his face right up to my big-ass cat. Panther immediately jumped onto the dogs forehead, buried his front claws, then started marathon-running his back claws all over that dog's nose and snout. There was blood everywhere. The black dog, seeing his buddy in trouble... ran like the wind out of our yard and probably all the way back home. The brown one was leaping and swirling around the yard, trying desperately to get Panther off of his face, Finally, my cat let him go, and this poor dog flew out of our yard like he was being shot at. I was standing in the doorway at this moment. (Storm door.) Panther strolled back to his spot and lay back down, this time facing the house. He saw me and gave one bored blink and then stared off into the distance as if he had been slightly bothered.
That is just one of the stories about this beloved cat. I wish I had the pictures of him, but those are all with my mother and she has put them in storage. Maybe one day I can get to them and show you all what he was like. When my parents split up, he went with my father because we could not have him where we were moving. He ran away from there one evening and was never seen again. But, my family and a few others believe that he is now ruling the forests behind my father's house to this day, even some 40 years later. Such is the stuff of legends.
The Legend of Panther.
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