Maine Coon competes with five-year-old girl for size

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The young girl is holding this huge Maine Coon badly but that's beside the point because what is interesting is the size difference: none! Although I see a lot of youngsters holding cats like this. I don't know why their parents let them do it. It looks wrong and uncomfortable for the cat but they tolerate it well. All the large MCs I have seen are very placid. The cat appears to be a super silver tabby-and-white with the usual massive plumed tail.

This child could not pick up this cat probably because of size and weight. How to pick up and carry a cat.

Maine Coon competes with five-year-old girl for size
Maine Coon competes with five-year-old girl for size. Photo: Pinterest.


The introduction ('General') to the CFA breed standard for this cat breed makes no mention of size except to state that the 'quality should never be sacrificed for size'. So quality is more important than size. But size has become a symbol of quality among some breeders it seems. The two do overlap. A lot of admirers of the breed consider the biggest Maine Coons to be the best. It seems that some breeders focus on size while maintaining quality and the so-called European Maine Coon is bigger and more often bred to extreme than the original American variant.

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