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Showing posts with the label friendliness

Are Maine Coons cuddly?

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There are two aspects in answering the question, aren't there? Of course, Maine Coon cats are cuddly felines because one wants to cuddle them. They are fluffy. They have shaggy fur. They look adorable. They make a sweet sound somewhat quiet compared to their size. They are friendly and adorable. You want to cuddle your Maine Coon cat. In that respect they are very cuddly. Young woman cuddles her beloved Maine Coon. This image is free to use under an unconditional Creative Commons license. Click on it to see it larger and to download it. The other aspect is whether your Maine Coon cat either wants to be cuddled or will accept being cuddled. And that depends on two factors. Firstly, there is the overarching personality characteristics of the Maine Coon cat.  This is a slightly difficult topic because it is somewhat unfair to brand all Maine Coon cats with exactly the same character. You can't really do it but there are some hints about their personality in a book by Gloria Stephe...
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Sensitive, female Maine Coon left her paw print on journalist's heart

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The story is by Kathryn Hearn of The Guardian newspaper. It's perhaps not that untypical a story but it does come from a journalist and it does concern a beautiful and sensitive female Maine Coon cat whose name was Lizzy. I've used the past tense because Lizzy has now passed over the Rainbow Bridge because of that common feline killer in old age: kidney disease. “Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never ever the same.” - Well known saying. Beautiful Lizzy 'on her throne' in the words of Kathryn Hearn. Photo by her. But Lizzy played a very important part in the life of Kathryn Hearn when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And it should be said that at the outset of her relationship she adopted Lizzy because the breeder suggested it as she was very close to another Maine Coon cat called Ollie. They were inseparable actually. And so Ollie and Lizzy were adopted together. Lizzy was considered the runt of the litter and almost...
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Why are Maine Coon cats so friendly?

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A person on social media asked: "Why are Maine Coon cats so friendly?" They asked that question with confidence. I can think of a few topics to discuss in response to the question. Socialisation Maine Coon cats are purebred cats. Purebred cats are bred by cat breeders. Cat breeders know that they have an obligation to make sure that their kittens for sale are fully socialised to humans. This means that they will be friendly towards humans from the get go. The breeder achieves this by making sure that the kittens that she has created in her breeding programme are underfoot in her home, meeting members of her family and even strangers. In this way the kittens become acclimatised to being around people. This means that when they meet their new owner, they get along with them and are not frightened of them. That's why Maine Coon cats are so friendly. It is down to the efforts of the cat breeder and socialisation. Unfriendly Maine Coon? Sometimes a Maine Coon cat might not be ...
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Do Maine Coon cats get on with other cats?

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Maine Coons are just like any other domestic cat in terms of whether they get on with other cats. They are not a special case with extraordinary powers of friendliness and amicability. Yes, generally (subject to good socialisation as kittens) they have nice, laid-back characters but this does not override the domestic cat's instinctive behaviour to claim a home range and protect it from 'invaders'.   A person who knows the Maine Coon well, Gloria Stephens, a cat show judge and breeder, says that 'most are nothing but sweet'. Not the qualifying word 'most'. She says that her female is calm and collected 'controlling the house with a mere glance of the eye'. A nice character but still a classic domestic cat in overall character. Omar is a good friend to a standard moggie - a dark tortie. Image: Instagram. A new cat to a home would be nearly always be regarded as an invader. The reaction depends on the cat. It might be mild or there may be aggression. T...
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My first Maine Coon cat. Very independent. Does not like being held and only snuggles at night. Do they become more snugly?

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The title is a question on Reddit.com. I think it's a good question as it goes to the heart of domestic cat character and the Maine Coon cat character. My interpretation is that the kitten is a dilute ginger tabby with a bit of white. He is, of course, beautiful and he is definitely purebred. You can tell that by the very distinctive appearance. My first Maine Coon cat. Very independent. Does not like being held and only snuggles at night. Image: u/dinokith on Reddit.com The adopter is concerned that her cat is not friendly enough for her. She is the type of cat caregiver who wants their cat to sit on their lap and lie next to them in bed et cetera. Some people don't like that too much and they prefer a cat which is more standoffish. You will see many different descriptions of the Maine Coon cat (MC) character on the Internet. Some authors state profusely that Maine Coon cats are wonderfully friendly and so on. They don't differentiate between individual cats which I think ...
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Why are Maine Coons so friendly? Are they 'so' friendly?

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People ask Google why the Maine Coon cat is so friendly. Is it really true that they are extra friendly? Clearly internet authors are saying that they are. My go-to reference book on the personality of the Maine Coon is one written by a former cat breeder and show judge, Gloria Stephens.  She lives with Maine Coon cats. I don't think that you could get a better reference than her. I prefer book references to the internet because on the latter authors tend to race off copies of what they've seen without really questioning it. Are Maine Coons as friendly as some people claim? Image by MikeB at PoC. Gloria Stephens Gloria Stephens tells me that they are 'people orientated' which implies that they are friendly but 'they are not over-dependent'. They don't constantly demand attention "preferring to hang out with their owners". And she says that they don't necessarily want to be held but they like to be near the person they love. And they form close ...
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I need advice. My Maine Coon is NOT friendly

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There is an old post on the Reddit.com website with the title: I Need Help/Advice. My Maine Coon Is NOT Friendly. The owner wants help to try and figure out why her neutered male cat behaves as he does. He’ll sleep with me sometimes at night and tolerate petting, but does not like to be held, and turns to bite if you pet him “too much”. (Which is often 2-3 pets) She says that he came from a breeder whose other Maine Coons (MCs) are friendlier.  The way I see it is that the overarching character trait of the Maine Coon is perhaps not - in general - as 'lovey' and accepting of petting as some other cat breeds. And I always refer to Gloria Stephens who was or still is a cat show judge, Maine Coon owner and author ( Legacy of the Cat ). She has firsthand experience and lots of experience on the character of the MC. She's clear on the MC character: They do not constantly demand attention, preferring to hang out with their owners. They do not necessarily want to be held, but they...
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Are Maine Coons friendly?

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Google tells me that people are searching for an answer to the question "Are Maine Coons friendly?". To be brutally honest, it's a silly question. It has to be a silly question because Maine Coon cats are just like any other well-integrated domestic cat. It seems that I have answered this question before 😕. I will press on nonetheless. Maine Coon love-in. Photo: Pinterest. The central point that has to be made is that Maine Coons are purebred cats. They are created by cat breeders running hobby businesses. Part of the job of a cat breeder is to make sure that their kittens are ' raised underfoot '. This means that they are raised with people around them during the first weeks of their lives. The purpose: to socialise the cats and make sure that they are well-integrated into the world of humans. And ideally, they should also be integrated into the world of dogs and other pets. So from the get-go, Maine Coon cats are being trained or indoctrinated into being fri...
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Nervous about getting a second Maine Coon but it worked out great

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The video shows a wonderful friendship between a resident Maine Coon and the incoming Maine Coon. The owners were a little nervous about the prospects of them getting along but, it seems, they needn't have been. They are the best of friends. When it works out like this it is incredibly pleasing. It can be difficult to predict whether an incoming cat will get along with a resident cat. In fact, it is probably impossible because it is about chemistry just like humans. And there is no accounting for chemistry in relationships. Incoming Maine Coon gets on great with resident Maine Coon pleasing their owners. Screenshot. But, when they get along the owner knows that some responsibilities are taken off her shoulders. The responsibility of making sure that their cat is entertained and content. That responsibility is still there but with a cat companion a resident cat who was the only cat in the household suddenly has a feline friend and that's a bit different to having a human frie...
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Are Maine Coon cats friendly? Great picture of a friendly Maine Coon

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Asking whether a Maine Coon cat is friendly is like asking whether the dog your father lives is friendly or the cat that your mother lives with is friendly. The answer, yes, 99% of the time otherwise cat and dog domestication wouldn't work. If Maine Coon cats were generally unfriendly there would be none in existence.  Friendly Maine Coon 'Rex' loves to cuddle in the morning. Photo: Reddit. It would be a cat breed that failed at the starting gate. But that would never have happened because you can make Maine Coon cats friendly by treating Maine Coon kittens, until they are seven weeks of age, really nicely and making sure that they get used to people during that very tender and important time of their lives. If cats get used to people they are friendly towards them. Domestic cats become part of the human family and regard themselves as family members. If you do that i.e. socialise cats, all will be well and the Maine Coon cat created by a cat breeder will be friendly. If...
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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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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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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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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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A mightily beautiful orange Maine Coon

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Orange cats seem to feature in films more than other types of domestic cat . Is it because they have good, balanced characters? I am discussing the possibility of a link between coat type and color and character. A big call. A longshot. But possible. I discussed it in another post - click here if it interests you .  So, we love orange cats. They are undoubtedly one of the more popular cat coat types. And that is one reason why this Maine Coon is so damned attractive. What a combination: the size and presence of the Maine Coon, the world's largest domestic cat breed , and the orange tabby coat ( the friendliest cats? ) A mightily beautiful orange Maine Coon. Photo: Pinterest. I think this sort of domestic cat is the most desirable. You would be hard pressed to adopt a better cat but the best ones to adopt are the unadoptable, elderly, black rescue cats languishing in a shelter somewhere . A bit about the orange cat Cat breeders tend to refer to orange as red. The general public r...
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Today's Maine Coons are much larger and longer than the original

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There was a time, during the early years when the Maine Coon's popularity was in decline that the cat fanciers struggled with writing what they believed to be the correct breed standard. There was competition between what Richard H Gebhardt describes as a "progressive standard" or one which was designed to "describe and preserve an existing cat" i.e. fix the appearance. At this time this cat breed was much more a standard looking cat which is probably why it failed to catch the imagination of the cat loving public of America. Maine Coon. Photo in public domain. A progressive standard is one which allows breeders to constantly "refine" the appearance as they might describe it. But this can lead to extreme breeding and extreme appearances such as is evident in the Persian and Siamese. There was a time, then, went Richard H Gebhardt says that cat fanciers asked, "is the Maine Coon cat simply the long-haired variety of the domestic, or American, sh...
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