The reason (sole reason!) why your Maine Coon is naughty!

I'm reading the Maine Coon Central website while dictating this. And I am irritated to be perfectly honest. I have a completely different perspective to Maine Coon cats and domestic cats in general compared to the woman who writes the above-mentioned website.

The first point I would like to make is this: to call a domestic cat "naughty" is to anthropomorphise the cat. In other words, you are humanising a domestic cat, an entirely different species.

Image copyright Helmi Flick

Maine Coon cats are never naughty in the true sense. They might seem to be naughty in the human sense if you are looking at your Maine Coon cat as if they are a toddler but that's an entirely different thing. I don't think you should look at the Maine Coon cat and think that you are looking at a toddler.

You should respect the domestic cat's normal behaviours which are always in response to the environment in which they live. Their behaviour is instinctive based upon inherited behavioural characteristics and lifetime experiences i.e. the nature/nurture argument.

So if your Maine Coon cat is peeing on the carpet while you're away it may be because they are suffering from separation anxiety because you are away too much causing anxiety and spraying urine (or defecating in extreme cases). Or if there is some blood in the pee it's going to be idiopathic cystitis which is brought on by stress.

You might regard this as naughty behaviour. I would regard it as normal behaviour in response to being left alone all day. I think you can get the message. That kind of formula applies to every instance of Maine Coon cat behaviour.

What if your cat bites you. It might be redirected aggression because they saw a fox outside and wanted to attack the fox but couldn't because they are kept inside and therefore, they attack you. That is normal feline behaviour in some instances. It is not naughty or bad behaviour in the true sense.

Or they might bite you in a play-biting session because you overstimulated your cat when petting them. It depends how hard they bite in assessing the root cause of why they are biting you. But gentle nibbles are going to be play-bites. This is perfectly normal for domestic cats because for domestic cats playing is aggressive by human standards.

And they often use their mouths when playing. I could go on covering all kinds of different scenarios but I feel that there is no point. The author of the Maine Coon Central website, gets it entirely incorrect. I'm sorry but they just waffle on in 2000 words saying stuff which is misleading. I just can't see the point of it.

If you want to stop your cat being "naughty" then you should look inward to your behaviour and the environment that you have created for your Maine Coon cat. All cat behaviour is in response to their environment and their caregiver's behaviour. When a cat behaviourist is called into a home to resolve a bad cat behaviour problem, they will always discuss the matter with the owner and find the solution through the owner's behaviour.

Please forgive the odd typo as I create these at great speed!