Your Maine Coon Guide

No of course not. Don't be put off by the size, be  impressed instead. Maine Coons are no more dangerous than any other well bred, well raised and socialised domestic cat which means they are a delight to live with.  I think people have asked if Maine Coons are dangerous because they are the biggest domestic cat breed and can look intimidating but the key is how well they are socialised. All Maine Coons are well socialised because they have been selectively bred. This means artificial breeding by breeders as opposed to random breeding as occurs among free-living moggies.  Maine Coons are not dangerous. Photo: Pinterest video screenshot. And it is a duty of cat breeders to raise their cats underfoot which means they are raised with humans and sometimes with other animals around from as soon as they cat get around. It gets them used to people; to learn that people are not dangerous (some are!).  The only time domestic cats can be dangerous to people is when they are unsocialised

This is Foxhilltigers Milky way blue (smoke) Maine Coon. They are a Maine Coon breeder in Germany ( link to their website ). He is a great looking cat and it is nice to have the coat type from the person who created the cat. Blue smoke Maine Coon. Photo:  Fox Hill Tigers. It can be tricky to decide the type of coat on a purebred cat because there is a huge array of variations and there can be subtle differences. The Maine Coon has a large range of acceptable coat types. This cat looks absolutely classic in terms of Maine Coon appearance. I am sure he has done well at cat shows if he has attended them. His face is all you want in a Maine Coon. Gentle but strong. The breeder is located in Engelsbrand, Germany:

Naz Hussain QC was conducting a virtual hearing at the Old Bailey from his kitchen! I'm sure this sort of hearing takes place all the time with the modern coronavirus pandemic social isolation rules taking effect across the country. On this occasion - and this can't be unexpected - Naz Hussain's beautiful grey Maine Coon cat meandered into view, lurking in the background before walking onto the keyboard and into frame for the court to see. Naz Hussain QC's Maine Coon 'Columbo'. Photo: Naz Hussain QC. The cat's name is called Columbo and the judge having spotted Columbo asked if the cat was the instructing solicitor for the senior criminal defence barrister, Mr Hussain! This prompted Mr Hussain to jokingly respond by saying that the cat was his replacement junior (i.e. a junior barrister accompanying the QC). Stardom beckoned and Columbo now has a social media webpage: AdvoCat_QC on Twitter which will chronicle Columbo's activities. Apparently there w

NORTHERN IRELAND - NEWS AND COMMENT: Although the story is not hot off the press it is news nonetheless and it does tell us how vulnerable domestic cats are to spontaneous acts of violence, often by young men. In this instance the event occurred in Halfgayne Road in Maghera, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland.  Maine Coon Leo before being shot and partially blinded  by a shotgun blast. Photo. Maureen. Maureen Newman's Maine Coon, whose name is Leo was with his owner on their property. Leo climbed along the garage roof. It appears that he was visible from the road because somebody, using a shotgun, blasted at Leo. He staggered to safety behind the garage wall where he became trapped. He spent several hours in the same spot in severe pain as Maureen tried to entice him out of his hiding. She said that it was about 8:15pm on Saturday night after she had just fed her cat with some treats when he was shot. They were outside at the aviary with her dog a King Charles spaniel whose na

This is another picture of one of those strangely bizarre and compelling human-faced wise Maine Coons. You may have seen them on the Internet. They look at the camera with complete calm as if they know full well that they are imbued with the wisdom of ages even though they might be only about 12 months old!  These Maine Coons are selectively bred to look like this are little masterpieces and it must have taken many years of artificial breathing i.e. selective breeding to achieve this result. It must have been done with a distinct purpose and objective. It wouldn't happen by accident. Grey Maine Coon looking wisely human. Photo: Twitter. You almost feel that you are looking at a person. I wonder what it is like to live with a cat like this. Does it help the human caretaker to relate better with their domestic cat companion if they look like a person! I know people relate to their domestic cat companions as little people but in this instance you almost are! You would expect them t

This is a picture of a very impressive Maine Coon cat with a ginger tabby coat, a huge, plumed tail who is enjoying the outside on a leash. It is nice to see such a handsome cat on a leash outside the home. It is the only way such a cat could safely enjoy the outside so this photograph ticks all the boxes. This appears to be a backyard (garden). Ginger tabby Maine Coon with huge plumed tail outside on leash. Photo: Twitter. The most noticeable feature is of, course, the tail and Maine Coons are meant to have tails just like this one: long fur, flowing or in the language of cat breeders "plumed". A tail like this is part of the breed standard and all good cat breeders will aspire to this sort of appearance. It is one of the special features of this breed as is the square muzzle and the large ears which are lynx tipped. The fur should be shaggy (TICA) and there should be lots of tufts of hair sticking out between the toes! I don't know how many try to take their cat outs

What the hell are 'ear furnishings'? One of the features that a Maine Coon (MC) should have if they are bred to be in line with the CFA breed standard is well developed ear furnishings. I've used the phrase "ear furnishings" because that is the sort of phrase we hear in the cat fancy. Of course, I'm not referring to sofas and armchairs in a person's home. I'm specifically referring to the long hair inside the ear flap of this highly popular cat companion. But ear furnishings also applies to the tufts of hair sticking out of the tops of the ear flaps - these are lynx tipped ears. Maine Coon kitten with whopping ear furnishings. Screenshot. It's remarkable in some ways that the MC breed standard demands that the cat has hairy ears! That is what it comes down to. All men have their ear hair trimmed and removed whereas Maine Coon breeders use their best efforts to achieve the opposite. The CFA breed standard with respect to ears states: Shape: large

CRAVEN DISTRICT OF NORTH YORKSHIRE, UK - NEWS AND VIEWS: Norman is an 18-month-old Maine Coon. He went outside on Saturday morning and returned 27 hours later on Sunday. He managed to get home despite being shot with what is believed to be a doublebarrelled shotgun because of the number of pellets inside him. Yes, he had 25 pellets inside him some of them were quite deep and too difficult to remove. Norman and X-ray. Photo (left) Josie Simpson. Right: veterinarian's X-ray. When his owners saw him they thought he had been hit by a car. They found him on the stairs. They don't know how he managed to get home. When he was touched he cried out in pain. He couldn't walk properly and couldn't move his tail. They rushed him to the veterinary clinic. He was x-rayed and the 25 lead pellets were seen inside him. Josie Simpson is shocked and devastated. They've spoken to the press because they want to raise awareness of the sick-minded people who may be shooting cats in the

Maine Coons don't make weird noises in all honesty. They may chirp or trill more than the average domestic cat but even that is an individual cat characteristic - random bred cats trill and chirp too. Each individual domestic cat has their own repertoire of sounds that they make. The books will list the sort of sounds that domestic cats make and you might believe that you can pigeonhole all the sounds Maine Coons make into this list but you can't. Young Maine Coon speaks - meows. Picture: Pixabay. This is because there are millions of variants of the standard sounds. So, for example, the cat meow can be produced in a wide range of ways to the point where you can't really recognise it as a meow. It is a standard sound the cat makes. The video below proves my point. The few sounds that you'll hear are all standard within the parameters of domestic cat vocalisations. You'd think that the Maine Coon being a large cat would make loud sounds but, no. They are kitten-li

This is an interesting snippet of information about the Maine Coon cat. We know that this cat breed originated around the late 1860s when the very first Maine Coons called "Maine cats" or "Coon cats" were exhibited at informal cat shows by farmers in the state of Maine. There was one show, perhaps the only one, I don't know, called the "Maine State Champion Coon Cat". It was held at the local Skowhagen Fair.  Award given to Maine Coon in winning first American cat show pre the Madison Square Garden show of 1895. The award is at the CFA central office. It is a silver collar. Is Cosey wearing it in this photograph? Picture in public domain. The domestic cat ancestors of these Maine cats were the immigrant cats accompanying settlers from Europe in the 1600s. They landed at Maine. And it's is probably fair to say that the first major cat show held at Madison Square Garden in New York City was duly won by a female brown tabby whose name was Cosey. S

It is fairly obvious to me why a lot of people regard the Maine Coon cat as special. They are the biggest domestic cat breed and the biggest domestic cat barring the top end wild cat hybrids such as the F1 Savannah cat. Size counts in the world of cats.  What makes Maine Coon cats special? Size is the answer and this is one of many huge MCs on the internet. They seem to be quite common nowadays. Picture: in  public domain. And there are some fascinatingly huge Maine coon cats featured on the Internet. They look like large dogs. There is a kind of obsession with big domestic cats. But size in any context is important and normally it is big that is better than small.  So it is about humans playing God. It is artificial selection or otherwise known as selective breeding. Nature wouldn't have done this. The original Maine Coon cats would have been like any other domestic cat with medium-long hair. They would have been quite non-descript relative to some of the day's super outstandi

 A cracker of a cat. A beauty. Picture of a beautiful brown tabby Maine Coon. Photo: Pinterest and in the public domain. Brown tabbies are arguably the best Maine Coons reminding us of their origins as barn cats in Maine, USA. I have a full page on the tabby cat coat if you're interested -  click here to read it. This cat is not bred to extreme to be interesting and impressive which is much better. This is a nice well-rounded cat of reasonable proportions fitting the breed standard.

You can tell for sure if your cat is a Maine Coon through a written pedigree, a formal document, which you should have.  The fact that you are asking the question makes it pretty certain that your cat is not a Maine Coon.  Nearly everyone who lives with a genuine Maine Coon knows it because they bought the cat from a cat breeder and they acquired a document which is evidence that the cat is a Maine Coon. The bottom line is that there is written evidence. PrairieBaby Maine Coon cats. One of their Maine Coons. Photo copyright Helmi Flick. The said document will set out the pedigree of the cat concerned for at least four generations. All the cats in the pedigree will be a Maine Coon. This might be referred to as 'MCO' which stands for Maine Coon. Every purebred cat should be registered with a cat association aka cat club. If a Maine Coon is registered with The International Cat Association (TIC), for example, they will issue this document showing the pedigree. I presume that th

Lotus is well known on the internet. I don't know if he is male or she is female! It sounds like a female name so here goes. She is one of those celebrity cats and genuinely enormous. At the top end of Maine Coon size which these days does indeed mean enormous. She is the size of a bobcat but not as heavy. Bobcats are all muscle and Maine Coons are quite rangy and slender beneath all that ruffled, shaggy fur. Lotus a huge Maine Coon with a superb plumed tail as expected. Picture: Instagram. She has a succesful Instagram page which is where these pictures come from. It is evidence that the public love their large pet cats. And the Maine Coon is the largest but not all of them are as magnificent as Lotus. She is special. And being female (if I am correct on gender) makes her more special. Females are generally a bit smaller than males and yet she is as big as the biggest male. I have no idea where she lives. I really don't. It is somewhere where they experience cold and snowy