Are Maine Coons easy cats?

Maine Coon kittens should have good characters. Image: MikeB

The question on Quora.com is asking whether Maine Coon cats are easy to get along with. I've got a couple of particular thoughts about that which might help but you won't get a clear-cut specific answer to that question if you understand Maine Coon cats well and the cat fancy well as I do.

1. They are all individuals

The first issue is this: all domestic cats are individuals and so any breed specific traits have to be seen through the lens of their own personality and character and how their experiences have moulded them and how their inherited genetic have also moulded them (nurture and nature). 

It is therefore difficult to state that all cats of one breed have a certain character because they don't. The individual character of each cat cuts across that question.

The better question would be, when talking to a person who owns a Maine Coon cat to asked them if their Maine Coon is easy to get along with. And even that question is a bit misleading because the answer depends upon whether the owner is easy to get along with! 

It depends upon how good the owner is as a cat caregiver in terms of the amount of time they give to their cat and the facilities they offer them et cetera.

This kind of answer is not going to help and I'm sure that a lot of people will stop reading at this point and say I have gone off on a tangent but I haven't because I'm just giving an honest answer.

2. Selective breeding enhances the chances of a good character

The second point I would like to make is this one: Maine Coon cats, if genuine purebred and pedigree, have been created by a cat breeder specialising in breeding Maine Coon cats. And if you buy from a quality Maine Coon cat breeder, they would have created fully socialised their kittens to ensure that they get along with humans really well. Part of the breeding process is not only to create cats with a great appearance but also a great character.

And therefore, if you buy a Maine Coon cat it is more likely, probably, that at a young age they will be easy to get along with compared, for example, to a stray cat that you have rescued who might not be socialised to people and might initially be difficult to get along with. 

That, I think, is an important part of this answer. You'll get more predictability in terms of character when you adopt a kitten from a Maine Coon cat breeder then you would adopting a young cat from a rescue center who might not have a history and you don't know what they'd been through or if, for example, they've suffered some abuse which has coloured their character.

To go back to the question in the title. In general, Maine Coon cats will be easy to get along with but in this regard at a fundamental level there is little difference between a Maine Coon cat and any other domestic cat. You'll just have to deal with the question on a cat-by-cat basis.

P.S. Easy? Realism

I have to inject a little bit of realism in this discussion. That's because, from time to time, it cannot be said that looking after a single domestic cat or a couple of domestic cats is easy. There will be difficult moments. And there will be expenses and there will be some pressures. And at the end of their lives there will be the difficult decision of euthanasia. These will not be easy moments and therefore you can't generalise and say that Maine Coons are easy cats because circumstances will dictate otherwise from time to time.

There is also the specific issue of size for the Maine Coon cat because this is the biggest domestic cat breed. You will need to magnify everything up in proportion to the cat's size by which I mean there's more food to be eaten and bigger litter trays and more litter substrate et cetera so you've got these added expenses and slight difficulties to deal with which turn on the particularly large size of this domestic cat breed.

P.P.S. Last point about rescue cats

There is an important last point to make. I've mentioned stray cats above and rescue cats. Personally, I would prefer it if people adopted rescue cats from a rescue center and nearly every time these cats will have good characters partly because the rescue center staff will ensure that they are adoptable. And they need a home. They need to be adopted. Their places in homes are being taken by Maine Coon kittens created by Maine Coon breeders. I don't like that and I'm sure there are many other people who think similarly.