House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle's Maine Coon died at the age of 12

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You may have heard the news that the speaker at the House of Commons in the UK, Sir Lindsay Hoyle has just lost his Maine Coon cat, Patrick, who died at the age of 12, two years after being crowned Westminster's top cat.

House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle's Maine Coon died at the age of 12
Sir Lindsay Hoyle and Patrick. Photo: EPA.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle is an animal lover. He said that Patrick lived a good life. I am sure that he did as the Speaker is clearly an excellent animal caregiver. The information that caught my eye is the age of Patrick when he died. The age of 12 is not a great age for a domestic cat nowadays.

I think we can expect the average random bred cat to live normally beyond the age of 15. When I did some quick research on the lifespan of Maine Coon cats, all the websites I visited told me that they did between 12-15 years of age on average.

My estimation is that this is about three years shorter than your typical non-purebred cat. I think this is a factor in whether you adopt a purebred cat or not. And I think, too, that this is not abnormal or unusual for any purebred cat.

RELATED: Maine Coon Health Problems.

The lifespan difference between pedigree cats and random bred cats must be to do with genetically inherited diseases of the purebreds. Because purebred cats are invariably inbred in order to fix the appearance as per the breed standard, their health is negatively affected.

They inherit certain diseases. I have just written about the Norwegian Forest cat which suffers from familial cardiomyopathy. The Maine Coon also suffers from familial cardiomyopathy a.k.a. HCM.

You can almost bank on the fact that any purebred cat that you buy will have some predisposition to a health problem of some sort. Some purebreds are worse than others and it is notable that the longest standing purebred cats have the worst health record namely Siamese and Persian. This is indicative to me that the more you selectively breed purebreds more likely they are to have inherited diseases which gradually become more and more pronounced.

RELATED: Average life expectancy of a Siamese cat.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle says that Patrick was a big part of his family and he loved having him around. And he was around at his home and in Westminster on the Parliamentary estate.

Patrick was named after the Conservative Lord Patrick Cormack according to the Daily Mail newspaper online.

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