"My Maine Coon was allowed to sleep on the bed last night" and he was ECSTATIC!

The quote in the title comes from the mumsnet.com website and of course it caught my eye because I am a great fan of allowing your cat to come onto your bed at night and sleep with you even if 'you' means you and your husband. That makes a threesome which is a bit tricky but it's a compromise and cat care givers need to compromise with their cat because they are members of the family. Right!?

Image: MikeB

It means a change to sleeping arrangements but quite quickly you get used to these new arrangements. And it can mean sleep being disturbed because as we all know domestic cats can tend to be active at night. It depends upon the cat but sometimes they can be active all night which means going outside through the cat flap if they are allowed outside and then coming in again with, perhaps, a mouse in their mouth! 

There's all kinds of things going on but this is the price that one pays living with a cat including a Maine Coon cat although Maine Coons would rarely be allowed outside unsupervised.

It is probable that Maine Coon cats kept indoors full-time will also compromise in terms of their behaviour. They might modify it to be quieter and more passive at night in order to fit in with their human caregiver's circadian rhythms and behaviours. But it boils down at the end of the day to both parties adjusting in my view.

And it was great to read this story about a British couple or lady adopting a Maine Coon cat and allowing him on their bed at night. The rest of their post reads as follows:

And he was ecstatic!

Any time I reached out to touch him (to check I wasn’t going to roll on him) he started purring sooo hard. All night. It was so sweet.

I’ve never had a Maine Coon before and he is such a sweet and lovey boy. He is very sociable and likes to be around people. He cries when he can’t get into a room.

Please do share your cuddly cat stories because they WARM MY HEART!

Admittedly the woman is a cat lover! I guess you can tell that quite quickly by post. But it makes sense. I think that if a person adopts a domestic cat whether they are a purebred Maine Coon or a random bred cat, they should also adopt the mindset at the outset that they are going to let their cat come onto their bed at night. I know I am being rather demanding perhaps but it's just part and parcel of cat caregiving.

If you find it totally unacceptable then you might find a compromise which is providing your cat with a very cosy bed in your bedroom which contains your smells (unwashed clothes for instance) because that is what they enjoy rolling around in and sharing. They like to share their scent with yours. It is called scent exchange in the cat world as you probably know.