Why is my Maine Coon aggressive?

It goes without saying that Maine Coons should not be aggressive. They are not known for their aggression. In fact, all domestic cats should not be aggressive and the Maine Coon is no different from any other domestic cat in this respect.

So, if your Maine Coon cat is aggressive something is wrong. One remote reason for purebred cat aggression is that the cat is not socialised but this would be highly irregular for a Maine Coon because breeders create Maine Coons under controlled conditions.

Is there solemn duty to ensure that their kittens are socialised before they are sold to clients. The chances of a Maine Coon cat being unsocialised is highly remote. 

A person might adopt a Maine Coon mix thinking that their cat is a purebred Maine Coon. Some Maine Coon mix cats might be unsocialised because they might have been born in a home where the owner is engaged in informal breeding and the cats are unregistered. 

He or she may do a bad job of socialising their kittens and then sells them online at cheap prices, misrepresenting them as purebred Maine Coons. This is the kind of scenario that may happen and perhaps does happen not that infrequently nowadays because quite a lot of cats are sold online on social media such as Facebook which, by the way, is against their policies. It only happens because Facebook is unable to control it.

So, let's rule out a lack of socialisation and talk about another possibility. Stress and anxiety which overlaps by the way with resource guarding.

I'm talking here of the situation where they might be three cats living in a home and one of them is a Maine Coon cat. The Maine Coon becomes aggressive because they are having to defend their territory - their home range, from another cat in the home who might be more aggressive or dominant than the Maine Coon.

In multi-cat homes there can be a problem with asserting a home range. The home ranges will overlap because there is restricted space to establish a proper home range. And in achieving this goal, the Maine Coon cat may become aggressive.

And also, in achieving this goal there may be stress and anxiety. The Maine Coon cat may have to deal with a dominant or bullying cat. That would make them aggressive. It is a fact that cat aggression is more common in multi-cat homes for the above reasons.

There is also the issue of transferred or redirected aggression. Sometimes cats want to be aggressive towards something else and they can't be aggressive towards that animal which might be outside and they can't go outside to deal with it, so they turn their aggression against their owner or a member of the family. That can happen sometimes. It's not true aggression towards a person but just pent-up animosity and aggression for some other reason which is then redirected at their owner.

Another possibility which cannot be overlooked is that the Maine Coon cat might be in pain. There may be internal pain and when they are picked up, they feel it. They believe, under the circumstances, that their owner is causing the pain and strike out with a bite or scratch. 

If the other possibilities have been ticked off as inapplicable, the issue of pain must be dealt with, with the assistance of a veterinarian.

Finally, there might be a lack of stimulation leading to boredom and perhaps frustration which in turn might lead to instances of aggression towards other cats or perhaps even another member of the family.

In each instance, the cause will be a human one. It's a question of playing detective and working out the source of the problem. And it will be a problem because Maine Coon cats shouldn't be aggressive for obvious reasons.