Maine Coons are popular because purchasers ignore health and are captivated by their appearance

This is a slightly black, depressing article but the idea came to me a moment ago. The reason why the Maine Coon cat breed is in the top three most popular cat breeds in America and perhaps around the world is because the people who buy Maine Coon kittens from breeders are enamoured of the breed's appearance while apparently ignoring an aspect of this breed which is more important namely their health.

And their health is not good. You might argue that this breed's health is dire. You might argue that it's shameful that such a handsome cat breed with such a fantastic history has been brought low through irresponsible and unethical breeding.

I don't need to remind you about the health of this cat. But I will just touch on a few points. If you want to look into the health of this breed more, I would ask you to use the search facility at the top of the page. Or if you like click on this link because that will take you to the majority the articles about Maine Coon cat health and none of them are positive articles.

Or click on this one for Maine Coon inherited diseases. This is important. It should not be this bad for Maine Coons. Don't think that all domestic cats have the same level of inherited diseases. They don't. Moggies don't.

The more I have written about the Maine Coon get the more I have been drawn towards inherited genetic diseases. I wrote one recently about an inherited disease I had never heard of before which can afflict this cat breed to such an extent that it is 12 times more common in the Maine Coon cat than in the general cat population.

But I'm not blaming people who want to buy a Maine Coon cat for focusing only on the appearance. This is exactly what people do generally. I can refer, for example, to the Covid-19 pandemic when there was a surge in adoptions, mainly purchases from breeders, of dogs and cats.

In the UK, the French Bulldog became an overnight sensation thanks to a surge of purchases because people were fascinated with the appearance of this small dog. It became the most popular dog in the UK probably. All the while they ignored the fact that the French Bulldog suffers from 21 diseases and is the unhealthiest dog on the planet probably.

And they ignored the fact that at the time a lot of French Bulldogs were being imported from the European continent from where they were being bred in backyards and so on. They were disinterested in the history, the origin and the health and simply focused on the appearance.

Human nature is like that. People focus on the appearance. Humankind is a visual creature. Most of what we do is based upon what we see. This is our primary sense. Unlike cats by the way who use their sense of smell more profoundly, I would argue than their eyesight which is slightly flawed although highly sensitive under dark conditions.

It is surely time, however, for the dog associations such as The Kennel Club in the UK and the cat associations to take far more seriously the inherited diseases of their registered animals and radically alter the breed standards to weed out all cats and dogs that pass on these diseases in breeding programs. These bloodlines need to be completely overhauled, root and branch. In the appearance of the animal must come second to their health.

Because this attitude of appearance being the dominant attribute of a dog or cat starts with the dog and cat associations and clubs. It isn't just the public who focus on appearance, it is the breeders. And the breeders have to follow guidelines as laid down by the associations through which their puppies and kittens are registered. The dog problem really starts with organisations like, The Kennel Club in the UK. They set the tone with this obsession with appearance.

Of course, the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) for example, would argue that if they didn't focus on the appearance of the Maine Coon cat which is fantastic but on health instead then this breed would lose that majestic appearance and become a moggy in terms of their appearance. And then they wouldn't be able to distinguish the Maine Coon cats from other breeds. The same story would apply to other breeds.

The root problem is the whole purebred cat scene. Each purebred cat breed has to be distinguishable from the other and to achieve that there has to be inbreeding and when the inbreeding goes too far or for long enough all the recessive genetic mutations which import these diseases come up and become visible. 

But people are unconcerned about it. But they probably will be after they've taken out an expensive Maine Coon cat health insurance policy which will cost something in the order of insuring their home or perhaps the overall health treatment costs are the same as their mortgage.

Finally, the cat associations have no motivation to change breed standards because the Maine Coon is selling so well. Demand is higher than supply. It is pushing up prices. But if people stopped buying the Maine Coon almost entirely because of this cat's poor health, they'd have to address the health issues once and for all.