Can you remember seeing a man that looked like a cat on television a lot in the 2000s? This American man underwent a startling transformation of his appearance in an attempt to resemble a tiger through multiple plastic surgery treatments and other procedures.
Native to the Huron and Lakota tribes, Dennis Avner was a Michigan programmer who tried to look like the cat, his tribe’s totem animal. Dennis desired to be called “Stalking Cat,” but the media referred to him as “Cat Man” even though that was his totemic name.
Avner had multiple plastic surgery in his quest to become a tiger. Among these were the brows, the hairline, the splitting of his upper lip, and the contouring of his teeth to mimic fangs. Tattoos covered Stalking Cat’s face and body, and he wore yellow contact lenses emblazoned with a cat’s eye symbol. He even had piercings to hold a mustache in place within his top lip.
Because of his remarkable appearance and the path he took to achieve it, Dennis attracted a lot of media attention. He was regularly asked to appear on TV programs and be interviewed. According to Stalking Cat, he never kept track of the money he spent on his operations. He ignored their material expense and underwent them for spiritual development.
It is almost impossible to find an image of Cat-Man before his change on the internet. Avner managed to conceal his true look successfully. But in one old picture from his boyhood, he looks like just any other boy—pretty eyes, naive.
