R.I.P. Danté

Danté in Jacksonville, FL

My cat, Danté, was euthanized on my order yesterday (Tuesday, 8/18/20) and passed away peacefully at 4:00 PM EST.  He had contracted a serious disease, likely cancer, and his quality of life was declining.  He spent his last night watching television with me in his usual place - on the footrest of my recliner between my feet - until 1:30 AM.  When I turned the TV off, he hopped off and led the way up to bed, where he assumed his customary position on the bed next to me.

Danté and I adopted each other in Jacksonville, Florida, about June of 2003.  He was the smallest of three stray cats that I used to feed every evening, so I'd feed him inside to keep the other cats from stealing his dinner.  One afternoon when Danté was indoors, I opened the closet door and a cockroach the size of my thumb jumped out, and Danté nailed the roach.  Then and there I decided I'd better keep him, as he'd keep the freeloading house guests to a bare minimum.  I named him and took him to the local veterinarian to get him his shots and get him fixed.  I didn't want any paternity suits, and he wasn't even out of high school yet.  That was in 8/28/2003, and the vet estimated his age at one to two years old - a feline teenager.  He was described as a well muscled short hair male, completely black, of good disposition.

 

Danté Contemplates the Cat Teaser

As for that 'good disposition' part, the vet didn't have to live with him.  I rented a one room apartment in Jacksonville, and slept on a Murphy bed.  It was a bit short for me, so if I stretched out my feet would hang over the edge of the bed.  Danté was delighted by this, and would wake me up in the morning by attacking my bare feet.

He also like to play the shower curtain game.  My apartment had no shower curtain, so when I moved in I invested in an inexpensive plastic Florida style décor shower curtain, costing me a whole $4.99 plus tax at the local K-Mart.  Being playful in the morning, Danté would tear around the room, only pausing long enough to demand and eat his breakfast.  When I took my morning shower, he'd watch the shadows on the shower curtain and when he judged one was close enough, he'd pounce and swat at it.  It wasn't long before I had a nice, cat sized hole in my shower curtain.  One morning while I was shaving, Danté surprised me by leaping cleanly through the hole, then waiting patiently for me to tap the curtain so he could swat at my fingers.  He absolutely loved the shower curtain game, and happily played it until the end of his life.

To keep him from sharpening his claws on the furniture, I bought him a cat pedestal that was wrapped in a natural fiber rope.  It had a platform of sorts at the top that he could sit or sleep on.  To encourage the use of the sharpening pole, I rubbed it with cat nip.  Danté caught on right away, and obediently sharpened his claws on the pole.  What a relief - no sharpening on the furniture.

A few weeks later I was sitting at my breakfast table having my lunch when Danté came over and started to pester me.  He wanted to play; I wanted my lunch.  He finally gave up and walked away.  A minute later I glanced over to see what he was up to, and he immediately put his paws on the arm of the sofa while he stared right at me.  I pointed my fork at him.

"No! You get out of there!"

He crouched down with his ears back and made as if to sharpen his claws.  I hopped up and he ducked under the coffee table, then proceeded to stay just out of my reach as we went around the apartment.  Once I thought I had him cornered under the end table, but when I reached in to pull him out I got swatted a good one.  I retreated.

This ritual of threatening to sharpen on the furniture became a regular event, used whenever he wanted to play.  He never clawed the furniture while he was alone and I was gone, or if I wasn't within the line of sight.  He had to make eye contact with me before he'd threaten to sharpen on the furniture, and the only way to get him to stop was to get up and chase him around the room.

He liked to sit with me and watch TV at night.  He actually watched the television, and while he seemed to understand that TV wasn't real, every so often he'd walk up to the screen and carefully tap it with his paw, just to make sure.  He also liked to help me get the Kleenex out of the Kleenex box. I'd come home and find my box of Kleenex half empty.  He was a big help at unrolling the toilet paper for me, and paper towels were fun too, but not as much fun as the Kleenex.

Danté had certain expectations that had to be met.  When I lived in Jacksonville, I had an efficiency apartment with the galley kitchen and the single room was divided by a counter and a set of open shelves that hung from the ceiling.  Since Danté had learned how to open cupboard doors, I needed a safe place for his cat food bag, and the top shelf looked to be unassailable.  I put the brand new 15 pound bag of Iams cat food on the top shelf, right at the ceiling level.  That left two other shelves which were full of miscellaneous items as a barrier, and the four foot height of the bottom shelf from the counter.  And that was that.  Pleased with myself, I left for work.

When I came home, the first thing I noticed was Danté greeting me at the door and demanding his dinner.  The next thing was the bag of cat food.  It was lying on the kitchen floor with a hole chewed in it, and half the contents scattered all over the floor.  I looked down at Danté, and he demanded to be fed.  He kept insisting until I put a measure of food into his dish - then he was satisfied.  Just why the food in the dish was superior to the food on the floor, I'll never know.

Danté was a great climber.  I had an empty cardboard box that I was saving for something or other, and placed it at the top of my bookcase.  About an hour later I looked around the apartment for Danté, and couldn't find him anywhere.  I looked everywhere, calling him to no avail.  The only place he could be hiding was in the area behind the kitchen drawers.  He'd managed to get in there before, much to my dismay.  I had to remove one of the drawers the hard way to get him out.  Rather than remove a drawer, I tried calling him again and he finally answered with a single, irate meow.  He'd gotten into the box at the top of the bookcase and was taking a cat nap.  Just how he managed that I'll never know.

Danté lived and traveled with me for 17 years. We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was an indoor / outdoor cat.  The apartment complex was a series of one bedroom and efficiency apartments in a wooded area at the end of a cul-de-sac.  We lived in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where we stayed with my brother for a few days.  Then it was Madison, Wisconsin for two years where we had a large upstairs apartment with a private entrance.  Over the holidays we'd go to my significant other's home in the city of Sylvania, Ohio, where Danté made friends with two other cats and came to a grudging friendship with Ellen's dog Rocky.  We also stayed at my mother's home, a horse farm in Sylvania Township, where he found other cats to play with and we'd hear them chasing each other the length of the house at 2:00 AM.

Danté hated to ride in the car, so I'd occasionally board him for a few days at a kennel. He seemed to get along okay, and when I'd come to pick him up a few days or a week later, he recognized my voice and would sound a greeting in return. Since his squeaker was busted, he sang in an off-key baritone that was very distinctive. The ladies who worked there liked him, and said it was unusual for a cat to behave that way - welcoming his master in much the same way a dog would. But that was Danté, and he had a very distinctive meow.

When we were living at the horse farm in Sylvania Township, I got an opportunity for a job in Memphis, TN.  I couldn't take Danté with me right away, as I would be staying at my brother Bob's house and he had dogs.  Danté would not tolerate dogs, although he did come to an understanding with Ellen's dog Rocky, but to give credit where credit is due, Rocky was an expert at getting along nicely with other animals.  People, not so much.  But dogs or cats, fine.  Anyway, I couldn't take him with me until I got a place of my own, and so left him with my mother, who, as I mentioned, lived on a horse farm in the middle of ten acres of land, half of it wooded.  There were barn cats, ground hogs, and wildlife of all kinds.

Horse Farm in Sylvania Township - Front Yard

I packed and pulled out for Memphis.  Three days later Mom confessed that she couldn't find Danté anywhere.  She called Ellen, and they both turned the house upside-down searching for the missing Danté.  When they couldn't find him anywhere, I knew what had happened.  He got mad at me when I left him behind, and so escaped out the door and into the woods, fields, and barn.

I wasn't too worried.  Danté had never been declawed, and having lived outdoors he still had all his jungle skills.  Believe me, the woods that surrounded the barn was a real jungle.  The little pestilence was out playing in the forest and sharing the barn cats' food while everyone was worried about him.

The job in Memphis didn't pan out as well as I'd hoped.  In point of fact, I contracted pneumonia and ended up in the ER twice in rapid succession.  The ER doctor told me if I showed up a third time, I was getting admitted - in handcuffs if necessary.  I returned to the old homestead in Sylvania 57 days after I left - just a little over 8 weeks.  The first thing I did was go Danté hunting, but no luck.  I knew he could hear me, the little so-and-so.

The next day I was sitting at my PC in the computer room, which gave me a view of the side yard and the pasture just beyond.  I happened to glance out the window and saw a very familiar looking black cat staring back at me.  Then he meowed at me, and it was Danté's cracked baritone meow that he always used at the kennel.  I hustled outside and scooped him up and took him into the living room, where he sat on my lap for a while before greeting the indoor cats.  Mom was amazed - he'd been outside all that time and only came back when he was sure I was home.

After a Hard 57 Days Outside

I had Danté for 17 years, and he was the best cat anyone could ever ask for.  He always used his litter box, he never clawed the furniture, and he stayed off the kitchen counter.  He was always there to greet me when I came home.

His only fault was that I outlived him.