Your Maine Coon Guide

Do Maine Coons have a temper? This is a question asked on one of the top Maine Coon websites which Google favours. And I've got to say that it is a slightly stupid or misleading question. That might sound arrogant of me but I will explain myself. No domestic cat has a bad temper unless they are ill. Although they might be suffering from audiogenic reflex seizures or other environmental problems. I'll look at illness first.  Pain When a cat feels pain inside their body, they may be quiet about it. They might go quiet. They might sleep more than normal and find a quiet corner in the home. But you don't really know what's going on at least initially. So, you pick up your Maine Coon to give him a cuddle. They are very cuddly. Your Maine Coon companion cries out and strikes out at you as if in retaliation. You don't understand. You might think that your cat has suddenly developed a bad temper but he hasn't.  He/she has simply responded to feeling pain when you picked...

Image: MikeB Below is a list of seven potential Maine Coon behavioural problems from a well-known website about this cat breed. I would like to discuss them. The picture that I have made hints at the fact that I question whether these really are genuine Maine Coon problems. They are clearly natural behaviours because everything that a Maine Coon cat does is essentially natural; a reaction to the circumstances under which they find themselves and for a Maine Coon cat those circumstances are invariably created by their human caregiver because nearly all Maine Coon cats are full-time indoor cats. They live inside a human world; a human environment both in terms of the inanimate objects and the animate objects. Aggressive Territorial Clingy Inappropriate Climbing Spraying Scratching Furniture Destructive Aggression Of course, Maine Coon cats can be aggressive. Their inherent character trait lends this cat to be pretty calm and unaggressive; perhaps, in general, less aggressive than a typic...

I have just written a short article about domestic cat redirected aggression which Dr Fogle also calls 'pain-induced' aggression. I hadn't connected the two before but there is a connection. It is also called 'transferred aggression'. Cat redirected aggression or pain-induced aggression Pain-induced aggression in cats will typically be seen if a cat suffers from chronic pain to varying extents because of an underlying illness. When this cat is picked up for instance it may trigger a burst of pain. The owner puts their cat down as the cat cries out. Maine Coons more likely to exhibit redirected aggression? Image: MikeB The cat does not attack their owner perhaps because they feel unable to. They attack another cat in the home instead, shortly afterwards, to release their instinctive desire to strike back at the animal that caused the pain. We know with regret that the Maine Coon cat suffers from a range of inherited diseases which can cause discomfort to hard pain. T...

I'm going to comment on this. These are my views only. I respect the views of others. The story comes from the AVMA Journals website under the heading "Animal Behaviour Case of the Month". It is a story about inappropriate feline behaviour and how they dealt with it. They treated this Maine Coon cat as a patient with a mental health problem (my words) it seems to me from the way that they proceeded. I disagreed immediately with that method of proceeding. What happened is that the owners of a Maine Coon found the animal as a stray. The cat was neutered and about 4.5 years old. The cat was doing quite well and was fairly passive to the point where the woman of the house took the cat on the leash into the backyard. This proves that the cat was pliable and well behaved. While outside the cat saw an intruding cat. The woman picked up her Maine Coon to take him into the house. The cat redirected his aggression at the intruding cat onto the woman and bit her hand. The bite br...