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Showing posts with the label bathing cats

I'm allergic to my Maine Coon. Should I wash him?

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You may know that the major allergen which produces an allergic reaction in about 10-20% of people is Fel D1. There are lesser allergens but that's the major one. It's called a thermostable protein. And it is found in the saliva, anal glands, sebaceous glands, skin and fur of cats. They now believe that it is the sebaceous glands are not the saliva which is the main production site of this irritating allergen. Fel D1. Image: MikeB As it is deposited on the fur of cats either when they groom themselves or by the secretions of the sebaceous glands, it may cross the minds of cat owners that by washing their cat they may eliminate the allergic reaction from which they suffer. There are quite a number of people who live with domestic cats despite suffering from an allergy to cats. They find a way around the problem. And there are ways but washing their cat is not one of them. Very temporary relief with downside Washing cats does reduce the amount of Fel D1 on the skin and fur of a ...
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Do Maine Coons need baths?

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'Possibly' is the best answer I can provide. Gloria Stephens, the author of Legacy of the Cat and a former (current?) all-breed judge for the American Cat Association plus a 'devoted breeder of cats' and an owner of Norwegian Forest Cats, Oriental Shorthairs and Maine Coons says: "The Maine's coat does require regular combing and bathing in order to prevent it from matting". I defer to her greater knowledge and experience. I guess we all should, but I don't believe that a Maine Coon needs to be bathed regularly or at all to prevent matts. But there is no doubt that they do need combing and brushing like all longhaired domestic cats to stop the coat tangles. Maine Coon being groomed but not bathed. Image: Pixabay. I would avoid bathing your Maine Coon unless you really have to do it for health reasons but not to prevent matts, but that said Ms Stephens is very experienced. We differ in opinion on this. Perhaps the decision to bathe or not a Maine cat d...
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Laid-back Maine Coon wears AIR MUZZLE while being professionally groomed

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I learned about the air muzzle from this video. I had no idea what it was until I saw it in the video and wondered what it was called. She mentions it in her commentary but she speaks fast so I had to look it up. And as you can see it stops a cat biting when they are being subjected to professional grooming which can be quite vigorous. I am sure that sometimes cats are somewhat traumatised at professional groomers as they work fast and are quite tough on the cats. And the place is going to be scary to some cats. Air muzzle available online for around £25 in the UK. Probably a similar price in dollars in the USA. Image: in public domain. This Maine Coon has a bit of stud tail which was treated and the nails were trimmed. Afterwards he was given a full shampoo and wash and then a sort of modified lion cut which is a less-severe version. Throughout the treatments the Maine Coon behaved impeccably and I am sure that the vast majority of domestic cats would not behave in such a laid-back wa...
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How often should a Maine Coon be bathed?

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The question in the title presupposes that all Maine coon cat owners should bathe their cats. And as at Oct 21, 2021, the top website that Google finds when searching for answers to the question in the title, states unequivocally that Maine Coons should be bathed at least once a month to help control shedding and keep the coat clean. Wrong, I say. Maine Coon being bathed to get rid of fleas. This is one of the reasons why you might bathe a Maine Coon but only exceptionally. Constant, daily flea combing will do the job and cats love it. Most cats don't like to be bathed. Photo in the public domain. I don't live with a Maine Coon but I would strongly disagree with their advice. You do not need to bathe your Maine Coon unless for a special reason . It is wrong to presuppose that you should. The Maine Coon is like any other domestic cat in this respect. People don't ask how often they need to bathe their moggy? They don't even think about it unless there is a specific r...
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Wet Maine Coon loses her gloss and glamour

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You decide what this tweet means from this Maine Coon's caregiver, Jessica Price, because I don't have a clue. Please explain Jessica. I am interested. The sadness of the freshly scratched-up Maine Coon bather, who has scratches in places we don’t want to talk about from being in a shower stall with a panicking baby lynx. But what is clear is when a Maine Coon is wet, they lose all their glossy glamour. And the Maine Coon can be quite skinny below their medium-longhaired, natural-looking coat for which they are rightly famous. The huge Maine Coon that we see is no longer evident. Perhaps the worst part is the tail. The magnificent plumed tail looks like a frayed, wet dishcloth. Nice pic. She is female and relatively small compared to some Maine Coons I have seen. That's a good thing as the public is starting to believe that all Maine Coons are gargantuan. They're not . The breed standard doesn't even state that they have got to be large. CLICK FOR A MAINE COON QUIZ ...
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Should Maine Coons be bathed?

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No, Maine Coons should not be bathed unless there is a specific health reason. Such reasons might be that the cat has fallen into some paint or has a bad flea infestation. These would both be rare for Maine Coons as they live pretty special lives, normally, as they are purchased cats from a breeder and they can be expensive depending on the quality of the cat. They'll normally be full-time indoor cats in the interests of their security and safety and well cared for. CAVEAT: a Maine Coon owner on YouTube disagrees with me as she says that Maine Coons become smelly unless you bathe them a few times per year. Strange that as cats are fastidiously clean but I defer to her experience. Make your own choice. If your Maine Coon does indeed become smelly without any obvious reason, I'd bathe her. ---------------- Dirty stray kitten being bathed and probably enjoying it. This is NOT a Maine Coon! This is a stray who was rescued and in a bad way. Photo in the public domain. The reason...
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The extreme Maine Coon face

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This is an example of extreme breeding. This is a Maine Coon but this cat is an extreme and rare example of this breed. This is not the way they look normally. This face is almost like an aggressive robot with the piercing eyes and the huge muzzle.  Or like a lion's head. The head looks enormous and very heavy. It looks unreal. But it also looks very impressive.  And purchasers like impressive-looking domestic cats. But this not the face of a Maine Coon that wins cat show competitions as it does not fit the breed standard as accurately as the more moderate winners (see below).  In fact, the CFA standard is clear in that the cat should have a balanced appearance although this cat was not bred under the CFA breed standard as I understand it (see below).  Click here for more on the kind of MC which wins at shows . Maine Coon selectively breed to have an extreme face. Image in the public domain. And the Maine Coon is meant to be a large cat, the largest domestic cat b...
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Maine Coon Size - this is a huge one!

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  Enormous Maine Coon with a head bigger than the person holding him. Pic: in public domain. Maine Coon size is very important to both breeders of this cat and the public. I sometimes think that the public is more obsessed with Maine Coon size than the breeders are. The bigger the Maine Coon the better. There is a fascination about it and I confess that there is nothing much more impressive than a huge Maine Coon. They've been bred like this through selective breeding but please remember that they weren't always like this. The original Maine Coons were regular farm cats in the state of Maine in 19th-century and before. They were robust, rugged, medium-longhaired moggy cats but impressive nonetheless. Their impressiveness led to breeders deciding to breed them which in turn led to the breed being accepted by the cat associations and then to win cat shows and become perhaps one of the most famous breeds in the world. The breed standard for the Maine Coon as provided by e.g. Cat F...
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Average lifespan of Maine Coon cat

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How long do Maine Coon cats live for? What's the average lifespan? Do they live shorter lives than the average random-bred family cat? These are difficult questions to answer accurately. In fact, I don't think we can answer them accurately because nobody has been counting. Nobody has a database or carried out a full-blown survey and therefore you will read anecdotal evidence i.e. statements by breeders or people who think they know the answer and these answers get repeated on the Internet. I am not sure that they are accurate. Picture of a Maine Coon who looks like a middle-aged man. Photo: Pinterest. My research indicates that people believe that Maine Coon cats live between about 10 and 15 years old. Some may live longer than that and some may live shorter lives. One well-known Maine Coon, Rubble, lived for 31 years and was at one time the oldest domestic cat in the world. But there will always be exceptions and this article is about the mean or the average although these ...
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Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6 weeks and 6-years-of-age

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This is a cross-post as the image is so damned good. It is amazing because the cat is amazing. To put the same cat at different stages of their life in the same photograph is a nice idea especially with this Maine Coon (MC) who has an amazingly heavy face. It is so mightily masculine to be almost unbelievable. He has a priceless expression on his face too. Very serious compared to the innocence of his face when he was 6 weeks old. He looks a bit coy when 6 weeks old and a slightly grumpy middle-aged man when 6 years old. Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6-weeks and 6-years-of-age. Image in pubic domain. No doubt he is huge too. You get a clear sense of that in the image. There is a serious and less impressive side to this image. It's the backstory that people don't really want to read about and discuss or in fact do anything about: heart ( HCM ) and joint disease. The bigger and heavier the MCs are the more predisposed to heart disease they are. Here is the posts on...
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Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories?

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One Maine Coon website asks if Maine Coons are legal? My initial response was that it is a bizarre question (second thoughts below), but I'll answer it in my way. I say that it is a bizarre question because the Maine Coon is an entirely domestic cat by which I mean NOT a wild cat hybrid and therefore there is no reason whatsoever to declare it illegal in any jurisdiction unless that there is some other fanciful reason to ban the cat (there might be - see below). Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories? No, to the best of my knowledge. Image: MikeB I know of no jurisdiction anywhere in the world that bans Maine Coons which makes sense. Conversely a similar sized domestic cat, the F1-F2 Savannah, is illegal in many jurisdictions (states, territories and countries) because it is a wildcat hybrid. The cat has some wild cat DNA which some legislatures consider to be detrimental to human health and welfare and to the conservation of wildlife (if the cat escapes t...
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Tortoiseshell Maine Coon with split-face

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Maine Coon with "split face". Photo: Screenshot. This is a very impressive Maine Coon. As you can see she is a tortoiseshell and as you probably know almost all tortoiseshell and calico cats are female. There are a few male tortoiseshell cats (and this might be one of them). Their sex is caused by a genetic aberration because the genetics of tortoiseshell cats dictates that they are almost always female. About one in 3000 are male as I recall. Also, it is not that unusual to see this extreme pattern on the face which creates the appearance of a "split-face". This is not what is called a "chimera" but a normal variation of the tortoiseshell pattern. Sometimes you do see what some people call "two-faced" cats with this sort of face due to a sharply defined pattern down the middle of the face. But the genetics behind that is different to this normal tortoiseshell variation. This is a particularly extraordinary looking Maine Coon cat. Not all Maine C...
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5 Maine Coon transformations from kitten to adult (video)

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Maine Coon kitten and his adult self. Photo: Robert Silka. This is a series of photographs by the very famous Maine Coon photographer: robert_sijka. I think he presents his photographs too dark as there is not enough information in the photographs for my liking but he takes great photographs of great Maine Coon cats. In this series he photographs a kitten and their adult version. Each individual cat is a wonderful example of the Maine Coon breed. I can count five examples. In my experience, these Google Blogger videos only work if you click the centre play button and then, immediately afterwards, the play button bottom-left! It sounds bad but the short video is worth watching.
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Eerie picture of a Maine Coon sitting like a human on a chest of drawers

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This is a slightly scary picture according to those who've seen it. One social media user said it was the devil and "If I walked into a room and saw that, I would assume some shit is about to go down". There is a ghostly stillness and sinister feeling about the image. 'Eerie' is a better description. This attractive cat appears to be completely at ease and comfortable sitting on top of a chest of bedroom drawers. The lighting from below (deliberate?) enhances the eerie effect. It seems possible that this is a photo-edited image but if so, it has been done with great skill. However, I don't think this is Photoshopped. Rethink: to be honest, the more I look at the picture, the more I feel that this is a photo-edited image. It is just too unnatural to be real. Although some domestic cats get themselves into some very strange positions. Maine Coon calmly sitting just like a human on a chest of drawers. Picture source unclear. Image deemed to be in the public d...
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Picture showing a Maine Coon as big as a child

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Another good example of the size of the bigger Maine Coons. Photo: Reddit.com This is a good photograph from the point of view of comparing size because it is from above and so we can see the full length of this almost totally black Maine Coon with white boots. The cat looks bigger than the child which is possible because I've seen Maine Coons which are positively enormous. I'm sure breeders of this cat go out of the way and bend over backwards to breed the biggest Maine Coon that they can. It's a challenge. They're not meant to necessarily be as big as this, as far as I know. That wasn't the initial objective under the breed standard. The standard does not say that Maine Coons must be enormous. In fact, the Cat Fanciers' Association breed standard, in the opening paragraph provides an overview of the cat and there is no mention that this cat should be very big. It is reproduced below (great cat though): "GENERAL: originally a working cat, the Maine Coon is...
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Should Maine Coons wear collars?

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Should Maine Coon cats wear collars? It's a question posed by the owner of the website Maine Coon Central and I think the question is not a great one to be perfectly frank but it does just about need to be addressed which is why I am writing this article. Maine Coon cat wearing a collar. Photo by Warren Photographic (modified by MikeB) and used with his express permission. You could ask the same question about any domestic cat that goes outside. Cat collars normally contain an identification tag. Cats that go outside might get lost. The ID tag can help them be reunited with their owner without recourse to having to scan for a microchip. The thing is though that it is probably exceptional for a Maine Coon cat to be allowed to go outside unsupervised. Quite rarely people take them outside on a harness and lead to allow them to explore the outside and be mentally stimulated. However, under these circumstances you don't need a collar with an ID tag for obvious reasons (unless they ...
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