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Showing posts with the label welfare

Be aware of those possible Maine Coon blues after the pandemic

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Mango happier with Hera after becoming depressed due to isolation post-pandemic. Screenshot from video below. There is a story online today (Newsweek) about a ginger tabby Maine Coon cat called Mango, living in Romania, who became depressed after the pandemic. The signs of depression were pretty obvious. He became immobile essentially. He lost interest in his favourite treats which she normally adored. He didn't even like being petted according to his caregiver, Mady Mondan, a 34-year-old therapist. She took him to the vet who said that he was healthy. Yes, he was physically healthy but it wasn't possible to say same thing about his mental state. He had become depressed. Some people don't think that cats can become depressed. I take that from the comments under the video of Mango on TikTok. Without being critical in any way, there is a lack of awareness sometimes about the range of emotions that domestic cats can experience. They can certainly experience the basic emotions ...
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Location: Romania
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In the era of 'global boiling' a lion cut for a Maine Coon is on the cards

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Pretty Maine Coon with lion cut. Image in the public domain. Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General said this about global warming: "The only surprise is the speed of the change. Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived." Relative to America, air conditioning is quite unusual in most of Europe. The Washington Post recently reported that only 20% of European homes have air conditioning, and it's rare to find it in schools or offices. I've argued that in some American states such as Texas it would be unfair to have a Maine Coon as it'd be too hot . There are many Maine Coon cats in Europe. And further, July is "virtually certain" to be the hottest month on record globally by a significant margin, the United Nations and a European science agency have said. July's first 23 days averaged a record 16.95°C globally. You might have read about the wil...
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Smartphone addiction is harming the relationship between cats (Maine Coons!) and kids

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Maine Coons are great companions for children of all ages. They are a great influence in teaching kids empathy, compassion and taking responsibility for a companion animal who is dependent on human caregiving.  Smartphone addiction harming the relationship between cats (Maine Coons!) and kids. Image in the public domain. Note: she needs a lesson in how to pick up a Maine Coon! Don't basically 😊. Kids learn a lot from all domestic cats and I'd like to think especially the Maine Coon as they have great characters which seem ideal for interactions with children. The Maine Coon is famously suited to form a strong bong with a child. Their generally tolerant nature and calm demeanour makes them well suited for children . Maine Coons can be the same size as children (see above)! This may help to encourage respect for cats at an early age which is carried forward into adulthood. Those are the potential benefits for a child when bonding with a Maine Coon or any other cat. BUT (a big lo...
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I want to adopt a Maine Coon. What kind of lifestyle should I give her?

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I think that this is a fair question because obviously domestic cats live in a human world. They live in a world created by humans for humans. It is the cat who has to adapt unless the human really bends over backwards and unusually creates an interior of their home which is designed for a domestic cat. Leash! I have provided a hint there as to what kind of lifestyle you would provide for your Maine Coon cat. It would essentially be a full-time indoor lifestyle with trips outdoors with your cat on a leash. That is my personal view. That would mean leash training when they are a kitten if you adopt a kitten. It makes it much easier. Big blue Maine Coon looks after regular-sized friend. Cute. Image: Reddit user: u/Emperor-Palpamemes Stimulation In addition, you will probably have a catio at the back of the house to provide your cat with some mental stimulation. The other input in terms of mental stimulation would be, as mentioned, taking your cat for a walk on a lead . Distinguished The ...
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Can Maine Coons be left alone?

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Can Maine Coons be left alone? The answer depends on for how long! I guess that is obvious. Five minutes? Yes, 5 hours? Yes. A full day, just about but don't do it regularly. I don't think any domestic cat should be left alone every day such as when their owner goes to work and leaves their Maine Coon at home in an apartment for the entire time.  and even goes out in the evening; not good. That does not work for me, and neither will it work for the cat. Although they will have to tolerate it sometimes but perhaps at the expense of their health: separation anxiety causes stress and possible aliments such as idiopathic cystitis. Stressed Maine Coon. Image in public domain. The answer to the question in the title is No, because the question is by implication: 'Can Maine Coons be left alone all day every day?" And it does not matter if we are referring to domestic cats of any breed including non-purebred cats. They all have the same essential emotional requirements, which ...
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Maine Coon Singapore Facebook administrator sold 2 cats from a breeder for S$400 commission

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NEWS AND COMMENT: Although, the detail in the story is a little bit thin, it is an interesting one. It concerns the administrator Derek Chew Keng Khoon, 45,  of a Facebook page called Maine Coon Singapore. It's a kind of meeting place for Singapore citizens who live with a Maine Coon. It also appears to be a place where some people visit for the purposes of trying to purchase a Maine Coon. As I understand it, it is against Facebook policy to sell cats on their website. Maine Coon Singapore Facebook administrator sold 2 cats from a breeder on S$400 commission Khoon is accused by the Singaporean authorities of using his flat as a pet shop to sell two kittens. I will presume that these kittens were Maine Coons. His name, incidentally, is very apt, I think you will agree. Maybe that's partly why he loves Maine Coon cats. He faces three criminal charges in Singapore: two of them concern using his flat as a shop to sell to kittens between January 5, 2020 and February 29, 2020 with...
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Location: Singapore
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Popular posts from this blog

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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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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