Your Maine Coon Guide

Calico Maine Coon kitten. Image: Reddit user: u/Aaalyaaa A woman on social media is asking other users for their help because she is in the process of purchasing a female Maine Coon kitten who is a calico kitten i.e. tortoiseshell and white but her husband thinks that she is ugly and it seems that he is pressing her to adopt this kitten's brother who has a shyer temperament. The wife thinks that the female will get on better with her four-year-old child because she is more outgoing. But the central point is the disagreement between wife and husband on whether this female Maine Coon kitten is ugly or not. Below is my response on the social media site concerned namely Reddit.com. What do you think? Well, I am with you. You think she is unique and attractive. She has an interesting appearance which is worth a lot in terms of attractiveness. To me she looks like a tortoiseshell-and-white (calico) under all that fur! And don't forget she is a kitten. It'll take time to see her f...

On many social media websites, you will see people asking whether their cat is a Maine Coon cat. Many people have the idea that the standard brown or gray tabby cat is a Maine Coon cat because they associate the tabby pattern with Maine Coons. In fact, you see people advertising cats for sale as 'Maine Coon mix' that are not half-Maine Coon as they are just mixed-breed tabby cats. They want to sell the cat at a higher price. And it's true that the classic tabby pattern looks very good on a Maine Coon cat. That's because the historical ancestor of the Maine Coon cat is the barn cat living in the state of Maine and in other places along the east coast of America. And these barn cats are normally tabby cats. But just because a random-bred domestic cat ('domestic longhair' or 'domestic shorthair') is a tabby cat does not mean that they are a Maine Coon. You need a lot more. Also, you can't just rely on the appearance of the cat. You have to have the pape...

I am or was slightly bemused by this Maine Coon video. She is a beautiful Maine Coon cat and she is kneading a fluffy cover of some sort. The cover is made of a white fabric probably fleece. Fleece doesn't normally come loose.  Maine Coon has the most amazing 'tufted paws' that you'll ever see. Screenshot. I say that because this female Maine Coon has so much fur on her feet that it makes me almost believe that she has picked up some of the fabric from the cover that she is kneading. I don't know but have you ever seen so much fur on the feet of a Maine Coon cat?  We know that the Maine Coon is known to have a lot of fur sticking between their toes. It is one of the signatures of this popular domestic cat breed. But if you look at the video carefully you will see an inordinate amount of it the stuck to her feet which does not seem plausible. I don't see how it can be like that. It seems impossible. But she is a hairy Maine Coon cat! And that is the reason why sh...

This is a really pretty Maine Coon. Such a delight for tired eyes. A real beauty. She has got to be a dilute ginger tabby. Delicate features but not to the point where she falls foul of the breed standard. Maine Coons are not meant to be delicate but robust-looking to reflect their barn life existence in their pre-show cat days in the 19th century on the East Coast of America. This looks like the Florida Keys or some other part of that sunny state to me but I am not that familiar with that neck of the woods. But it does look like a sunshine state for a sunshine Maine Coon. Even her coat is radiant. She is so definitively female. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference but not in this case. Now, if you are thinking of buying a Maine Coon you could do a lot worse and to go boating with her like this it makes it all look so delightful, so right. The cat is getting all the excitement they need and the caregiver is getting the company and the satisfaction from knowing that they are...

By 'no ears' I mean no visible ears. This is a nice photo showing the very sharp difference in the head profile of the Maine Coon and the Scottish Fold. In terms of the anatomy of the ear flap they are at extremes of the spectrum. The Maine Coon (MC) has big and often tall triangular ear flaps topped off by stiff hairs (lynx tips) which make the ears look even bigger. MC ears are one of their hallmark or defining anatomical characteristics . Maine Coon and Scottish Fold. Image: Twitter. The only anatomical characteristic which defines the Scottish Fold (Folds) is the flattened ear flaps. You can adopt Folds which have normal ears because that is how breeding has to take place. But without the flattened ear flaps straight Scottish Folds looks like any other non-purebred cat In order to avoid dire genetically created and debilitating cartilage problems breeders can't breed Fold to Fold which means half the litter are non-Folds. Which also means that you'll see "Scott...

Fast Eddie a great looking cat show Maine Coon. Screenshot. Fast Eddie, a superlative ginger-and-white Maine Coon show cat impresses at a CFA cat show. I think Fast Eddie came second in this CFA cat show in the United States to a copper-eyed, pure white Persian but he has been the best cat in other shows. I think he was the best Maine Coon at the show.  If you want to know what a great Maine Coon looks like as per the CFA standard, this is your boy. He's purrfect.   It is nice to see what the top cat association thinks the Maine Coon should look like. Potential adopters can get a little distracted by the huge Maine Coons on social media. The show judge makes a nice remark as she talks through the judging of Fast Eddie (who's anything but fast as he is incredibly calm and static which is great at this juncture of the show). She says that Maine Coons should have a balanced body conformation. They should not be extreme as some Maine Coons are. The character of the Main...

The little Infographic below tells you the essential information that you need to know in deciding whether the longhaired cat that you have acquired is a Maine Coon mix or not. The basic default situation is this:  If you've 'acquired' a longhaired cat such as a tabby and you don't know whether he or she is a Maine Coon mix or even a fully-fledged purebred Maine Coon, then your cat is NOT a Maine Coon and it is not a Maine Coon mix. That's the starting point. You have to beat that DEFAULT situation. Infographic my MikeB at PoC. And the only way to beat it is to have a DNA test done (I don't think they are available) which is rather pointless and it will obviously cost a little bit of money. Or your cat might show some genuine appearance characteristics strongly indicating that they are a Maine Coon mix or even a purebred Maine Coon. Personal viewpoint In my personal view there is not much point knowing if you cat is a Maine Coon mix because all you are proving i...

It sounds as if interior decoration is being discussed. 'Furnishings' normally means the furniture, fittings, and other decorative accessories such as curtains and carpets, for a house or room.  But in the great family of cat fanciers, it means ear hair 😊 and Maine Coons have lots of it. Sticking out of the top of the ear (lynx tips) or sprouting from inside the ear and fanning out like water sprinklers on a football pitch. Cat fanciers love it. I like it too but I find it strange because for humans it is the opposite. Men ask their barber to shave the inside of the ear to remove their ear hair. Well, the barber asks first and the client always says 'yes'. After all ear hair is unattractive 😎. So why is it attractive when it is on domestic cats? Maine Coon ear furnishings. Image by MikeB Well, I can think of one reason but there might be others. Cats are covered in fur, millions of hair strands. How many hair strands are there on a domestic cat? I tried to count them ...

There are at least 2, possibly three and more,  core Maine Coon features. It depends on your point of view. The three I have chosen are important. The third - the feet - are important to me because the Maine Coon (MC) is famous for polydactyl feet and they are part of the history of the breed which makes it very odd that the CFA do not accept polydactyl show cats. Polydactyl cats are great. Fortunately, TICA does accept them. TICA is more open minded and less stepped in tradition than the CFA. Polydactylism is benign. It is said that the ships' cats that were brought over with early immigrants to the USA were often polydactyl because the sailors believed that they could maintain their balance with greater certainty than non-poly cats. A reason why they were chosen as ships' cats. As I said it is an important part of the MC history and should be featured. The Boston area on the east coast of the USA is famous for a preponderance of polydactylism in domestic cats. In addition to ...

I will start this discussion by saying that the UK has its own celebrity, super-sized, Maine Coon cat who is enormous, weighing 24.3 pounds at only 12 months of age. His name is Murphy, and he lives in Worcester, and he is 41 inches long. He's become a media star as you might expect and has been featured in the Mail Online. Here he is: Placid-faced Murphy carried by his owner in an unnatural way. Image: Emma Trimble SWNS. But the photographs of Murphy on the Mail Online website indicate to me that he has a very placid temperament. The key to this discussion is that I have seen many Maine Coon cats featured on social media and in the news media being handled in ways which might provoke slight irritability and discomfort in the domestic cat, but it never happens with the Maine Coon. Every time you see a Maine Coon cat being handled like you see in the photograph on this page (incorrectly) they look totally relaxed and placid. I suspect, by the way, that this lady was asked to hold t...

A little bit of imagination is needed to see the hint of gargoyle in this majestic, tabby Maine Coon with the floppy ear furnishings, but it is there, and I have created a montage to help you. I hope I am not being disrespectful of the Maine Coon and of this individual cat. I am having a bit of fun and making a statement that breeders should not breed to extreme - please. Maine Coon with a hint of gargoyle. Image: MikeB based on (left) Amazon image and (right) Tomaso Gargoyle costing £109.99 on Wayfair.co.uk. So why is there a hint of gargoyle in this Maine Coon (if you agree with me)? It is all about extreme breeding which is what it says on the box. Breeders, through selective breeding, alter the anatomy of the Maine Coon to create 'extreme' more pronounced facial features. In essence without wishing to be unkind, the breeder distorts the cat's facial anatomy and exaggerates it. The gargoyle always has exaggerated features. That's what they are. And they are a bit gru...

 This video should be of interest to people who want to know what a Maine Coon should look like if they are going to do well at cat shows. I have discussed this topic before (see link below) but I think it is nice to hear a cat show judge going over the main features and what to look for in a good-quality Maine Coon cat.  Note: you might have to click on the play button 2x to get it to play 😒. You see what I would describe as quite a small female Maine Coon which he carries around in that classic cat show judge way which is a hand under both ends of the torso making the cat look very long. The size of this cat brings home to us that not all Maine Coon cats are enormous. Often times they are quite small relative to our expectations.  Cat show judge goes over the basics of Maine Coon appearance. Screenshot. That's not to say they are small compared to the general population of domestic cats. They are not. They are nearly always larger than your typical domestic cat but we ...

  Picture of a red tabby Maine Coon with a combed ruff and a big muzzle. Picture: Pinterest. It is a good photograph and a beautiful cat. The cat is very typically Maine Coon, bred slightly to extreme I would argue because the muzzle is very heavy and 'square', more so than you see on the winning Maine Coon show cats on the CFA website. The CFA show cat winners look more delicate than this individual (see below). Nonetheless this is a great cat. I don't think, personally, that Maine Coon owners should comb their cat's ruff as MCs should be natural, like barn cats and not too coiffed. Below is a Maine Coon show cat winner from the CFA website for comparison. RELATED:  What kind of Maine Coon wins competitions ?

The kind of Maine Coon that wins in competition is the best kind of Maine Coon. They are Maine Coons which are the most desirable. This is because they match the breed standard most accurately. These are the kind of cats that people who want to adopt a Maine Coon should choose. And it is notable that they are not like the super-impressive Maine Coons that we see on the Internet, usually on Instagram or other social media platforms. These social media stars are the big influencing Maine Coons with which people are most familiar. They have their own Instagram accounts with perhaps millions of followers. It can be misleading because, as you can see in the photographs below, the classic competition-winning Maine Coon is relatively modest in appearance. They are often tabby cats (tabby-and-white is a favourite) because the tabby Maine Coon best reflects the origins of this cat breed as they were barn cats. They were working cats and non-purebred cat at one time. What kind of Maine Coon wins...

A brilliant and pretty dilute tortoiseshell Maine Coon. It looks like Russia. They breed some amazing Maine Coons in Russia. Brilliant dilute tortoiseshell Maine Coon. She is very pretty to. This is a fantastic cat.Photograph: Reddit.com This is a very pretty Maine Coon with a super, dilute tortoiseshell coat. Perhaps strictly speaking this is a tortoiseshell-and-white cat and in American cat fancy language that is a calico Maine Coon cat. You can see that this is a dilute version of the tortoiseshell coat because the colours are washed out except, interestingly, for the orange tabby patch on the face and between the eyes. This gives a brilliance to the face. The muzzle is great. Just a very good-looking cat which caught my eye and demanded that I share the picture on this website. Dilution Robinson's Genetics provides some information about dilution. The symbol genetically is dd . They say that the: "dilute or maltese locus produces a factor essential for even distribution...

In Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) cat shows, Maine Coons are disqualified if they have a "delicate bone structure". The antonym (opposite word) of "delicate" might be the word 'heavy' or 'indelicate' or 'rough' or 'coarse'. I prefer the word "heavy" in this instance. So, if a delicate bone structure disqualifies a Maine Coon, then the opposite might make them winners, which is why I have said in the title that Maine Coon should have a heavy bone structure. Heavy bone structure. Photo in public domain. And this is what we get with the very large Maine Coons that we see so much of nowadays. The Maine Coon need not be large but the breeders want them to be large. They should be solid, rugged and have the ability to endure a harsh climate which is all in line with the idea of being heavy boned.  But they've got to be well proportioned and balanced in appearance. This points to avoiding extreme breeding which can tend to...

It is a slightly flamboyant title but when I saw this cat I immediately thought of the warrior war paint of the native American. It is as if someone painted this prominent white line down the middle of this handsome Maine Coon's face. And their lynx-tipped ears are tipped in dusky white. The ruff is in white too so it looks like a genuine human ruff from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. All-in-all a cracking cat. This looks like a black smoke coat with the white spotting gene creating the 'blaze' down the face. I think this is a polygenetic coat. But I don't know a lot about cat genetics. ASSOCIATED PAGE:  Difference between European and American Maine Coons Maine Coon with warrior war paint. Picture in the public domain.

In my view, there are two features of the Maine Coon appearance which define this cat breed. The most important of these is the "visibly square" (to use the language of the Cat Fanciers' Association) muzzle. This pronounced muzzle distinguishes the Maine Coon from all other breeds. If you want to quickly check whether a Maine Coon is genuine you could do worse than starting at the muzzle. 2 appearance features which define the Maine Coon. This individual has been selectively breed to extreme but the square muzzle and lynx-tipped large ears are very noticeable. Photo in public domain. The second defining feature is the "large, well-tufted, wide at base, tapering to appear pointed" ears. The tufts of hair coming out of the tips of the ears is a very strong defining attribute of the Maine Coon cat. You see breeders enhancing and emphasising both the square muzzle and the lynx tipped ears. ASSOCIATED:  Picture of a Maine Coon who looks like a middle-aged man Some...

Extraordinary hair. Frizzed and frazzled. And his enormous ears are clogged with more hair.  It looks like electricity is shooting through him. I think he is a Maine Coon because of the ears. Actually, I have decided that he is. The giveaway is the lynx tips to the ears. No domestic cat has ears like that other than the Maine Coon. I sense that he is a purebred cat from the appearance. I have no idea where the picture was taken but probably somewhere in the US. He is a bicolour brown tabby. The sunlight backlights the whiskers which is why it seems that they are on fire in front of his face. Young cat who looks like he's been plugged into the electricity supply. Picture: Reddit.com.

This ginger-and-white Maine Coon is all ears and paws surrounding a strong muzzle. Well, that is what I see when I look at the photo. It is an unusual Maine Coon photo. It is like two very tall ears with a ton of 'ear furnishings' (hair in cat fancy language) at one end and large paws at the other. In the middle is cat face with an exaggerated muzzle. Every part of this young, male Maine Coon that makes him a member of this cat breed has been exaggerated through careful artificial selection (selective breeding).  Maine Coon is all ears and paws with a strong square muzzle in-between. Photo: Pinterest. The breeder has taken the breed standard, highlighted the bits which distinguishes this cat from the others and said, 'Let's makes those elements stronger and more noticeable'. And they've succeeded. The ginger gene ' O ' is sex-linked, so I know that this is a male cat. There are some female ginger tabbies (all gingers are tabbies) but they are sterile....