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Maine Coon Won Best Cat At First US Cat Show

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At the time of the first American cat show held in the Madison Square Garden, New York on May 8th, 1895,  the now famous and popular Maine Coon was called a "Maine cat". The word "coon" was not a twinkle in anyone's eye. Perhaps the Maine Coon should still be called the "Maine cat" because I don't think the word "coon" does this breed any favours. Of course the first cat show, in what is now the country with the biggest cat fancy in the world, was held in the State of Maine. That makes sense. The winner was a Maine cat, which makes me think of bias but perhaps that is just me being cynical. The winning cat was a brown tabby Maine cat. The brown tabby coat is nice on the Maine Coon to this day because it is a natural coat type, the sort of coat that would have been typical for Maine cats. The winning cat was of course native to Maine. Apparently he was a good cat so was probably a deserving winner. He was a gelding. As the show took place ...
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Location: 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10001, USA
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Spinal Muscular Atrophy in Maine Coon Cats

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This is one of those genetic diseases that afflicts purebred cats. In this case it occurs in Maine Coon cats. Spinal cord nerves controlling the body's muscles and legs die. The disease is caused by an inherited autosomal (not sex linked) recessive gene . Cute Maine Coon tabby kittens. Photo: Helmi Flick. The disease is early onset starting at aged 3-4 months. The symptoms are: sway of the rear end can't jump decreased muscle mass no pain it seems Maine Coon cats with spinal muscular atrophy live pretty normal lives as full-time indoor cats. There is no treatment at the time of this post (2012 May). There is a DNA test for this disease. A cheek swab can be sent to the Laboratory of Comparative Medical Genetics, Michigan State University. Laboratory of Comparative Medical Genetics 2209 Biomedical Physical Sciences East Lansing, MI 48824 Please check that this service is still provided. I believe this is the current website: http://www.mmg.msu.edu/faculty/fy...
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Difference between Maine Coon and Siberian cat

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The difference between the Maine Coon and Siberian cat in respect of appearance will be found in the breed standards of these cat breeds. There will also be purported differences in personality and finally in respect of health issues. Purebred cats generally have some sort of propensity to a genetically inherited illness . Photos are copyright Helmi Flick The photos on this page are protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA). The breed standards compare as follows in a small selection of key areas: Ears - Maine Coon ears are large and well tufted (lynx tipped). They are wide at the base. The Siberian ears are medium large and ear tips are allowed but as you can see they are not necessarily present. The MC has more prominent ear hair ( ear furnishing ) inside the ear flap. General - Maine Coon is rugged and solid with a smooth shaggy coat. The Siberian is described as medium to medium large with a triple coat and the overall app...
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Maine Coon Rex

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The Maine Coon Rex is a curly haired Maine Coon. The word "rex" is used in the cat fancy to describe curly haired cat breeds such as the Devon Rex and Cornish Rex. The Maine Coon Rex popped up in the UK in the 1980s as a result of deliberate cross breeding with a curly haired cat or as a natural mutation. The cat was considered deleterious to the Maine Coon breed and culled (breeding cats neutered). Some people liked it and wanted to promote it. I don't think there are any pictures of this cat and certainly not ones that can be published under license. If you have one please tell me by leaving a comment. You'll just have to visualize one! The LaPerm is probably a similar cat to be honest. You can see the LaPerm on this page .
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Maine Coons and Water

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There is an anecdotal connection between Maine Coon cats and water. They are said to like water and to paw at water bowls etc. None of the respected and well known books that I have on cat breeds and/or the Maine Coon refer to this likeness for water or playing with water. The CFA website, the Cat Channel says they are fascinated by water, however. There are no creative commons images that I can find of Maine Coons playing with water. This supports the view that Maine Coons are not necessarily crazy about water. I have discussed this aspect of Maine Coon cat behavior before. On this page I set out my theory as to why this breed likes water (if it really does). The page included a testament by Helmi Flick , celebrated American cat photographer who lives with two Maine Coons and two Brit SHs . A colleague of mine VG has a page on her website about how Maine Coons love water and a video. You'll have to make your own mind up about it. It is possible that Maine Coons like wa...
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Maine Coon Weight Range

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The Maine Coon weight range is dependent on the fact that this is the largest purely domestic cat (meaning not a wild cat hybrid) in the cat fancy and the sex of the cat. There will also be individual cats that are very big indeed. These cats will not be typical of the breed. Typically large Maine Coon CFA cat show - Photo by semarr Tabby and white coat I think I tend to underestimate the weights of cats as visitors to my site who keep Maine Coons have bigger cats that I had imagined. I have played and lived with Maine Coon cats in the USA. They are big but we must not image that they are giant cats. They are a little bigger than the average large cat. According to Dr. Fogle of Encyclopedia of the Cat (ISBN 978-1-4053-2149-5), the Maine Coon weight range is between 4 and 10 kilograms or 9 and 22 pounds. Wikipedia says that male Maine Coon weight from 15 to 25 lb (6.8 - 11 kg). On my page about the size of domestic cat breeds I say that the Maine Coon weight range is ...
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Maine Coon Eye Colors

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A cat association breed standard dictates what eye color is acceptable for the Maine Coon purebred cat. So, I'll have to quote a breed standard. The International Cat Association (TICA), one of the big players, says this: "Color: Any shade of green and/or gold. No relationship to coat color. Blue and odd-eyes accepted in whites and particolors.". The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA), said to be the world's largest cat association has a very similar breed standard with respect to eye color . We should be seeing green and/or gold eyes with what I consider the best coat, the tabby and white, for this cat. Let's look for a picture of a tabby Maine Coon and see if the eyes meet the breed standard. Maine Coon cat eye color - gold on a tabby Maine Coon Photo by DreamShoot by Marcel Steger Well, this handsome boy meets the standard with respect to eye color  - beautiful gold eyes. Kittens have blue eyes until the pigmentation settles in into the iris of t...
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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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No part of a Maine Coon cat should be exaggerated

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It is interesting to read that the premier cat association, the CFA (Cat Fanciers' Association) - the cat association which really dictates (with TICA) how Maine Coons should look - makes it clear that no part of the cat should be exaggerated, and the cat should be "well-proportioned and balanced".  In other words, any form of extreme appearance such as a particularly heavy muzzle or particularly large ears with extra-long lynx tips are not going to be seen as advantageous in terms of winning cat shows or in terms of having an ideal appearance. As soon as I read that no part of a Maine Coon should be exaggerated, I immediately thought of the extremely large, extreme-bred Maine Coon cats that often come from Russia. These cats have very heavy muzzles.  Lion-faced Maine Coon with exaggerated features. Image in public domain now. In fact, their heads look like the heads of lions. I get the impression that breeders have selectively bred their cats over years to look like male...
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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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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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Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes

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Black smoke Maine Coon Richie with a black face and diamond eyes. Photo: Instagram. OMG, this is a Maine Coon with an amazing face. His full name is "Richie du Mont d’Even". I think he has a black smoke coat which has created this black face with the assistance of other genes (polygenetic influence?) and ears with piercing, diamond eyes. This is a very special cat. Richie looked very interesting but relatively plain as a kitten. Image: Instagram. His paws are balls of fluff. He has a mane that goes over his head like a halo. He's angelic and other-worldly. The lynx tips on the end of his ears are smoky grey which makes them stand out. They are a bit like the opposite to the black lynx tips of the wild caracal.  He lives in France with his human: Adriana Piraino. He was born on 7th November 2020. He is still very young. They say Maine Coons reach adulthood at around the age of 4. He is going to be enormous as well. Richie with Adriana. Photo: Instagram Richie was bred b...
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Difference between Maine Coon and domestic long hair

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The difference between a Maine Coon cat and a domestic longhaired cat comes down to the fact that the former has been artificially bred (selective breeding) whereas the latter has usually procreated according to natural selection. Natural selection is random breeding and therefore the domestic longhair is a random-bred cat whereas, selective breeding produces a purebred, pedigree cat registered with a cat association.  Difference between Maine Coon and domestic long hair. Infographic by MikeB. And because each individual Maine Coon cat is registered with a cat association, if they are in genuine Maine Coon, their appearance should comply with the association's breed standard . The breed standard tells breeders what their Maine Coon cats should look like in order that they can win cat show competitions if they want to enter their cat into these competitions. And so, as the appearance of Maine Coon cats is moulded to the guidance of a breed standard (see a section below from the...
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What is the activity level of the Maine Coon cat?

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Laid back, golden-eyed silver tabby Maine Coon looks down on their slave. Image in the public domain. One well-known Maine Coon cat website asks whether Maine Coon cats are hyper? And they go on to state that Maine Coon kittens are a little hyper which, as it happens, is typical of all kittens of all domestic cat breeds and random bred cats. It is just the nature of young kittens in the same way that it is the nature of young humans. But the word "hyper" is very far from the behaviour of the adult Maine Coon cat. My impression is that it is the opposite pretty well. One very obvious sign that Maine Coon cats are in general calm individuals is that you see many photographs on the Internet of Maine Coons cat owners holding up their cat to show them off to the camera and the expression on the cat's face could not be any calmer. They take it all in their stride. There is no struggling or wriggling to signal that they want to be put down as quickly as possible. I have a strong...
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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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2 top Russian Maine Coon cat breeders which ship internationally

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I am writing this from the West; specifically, near London, UK. There will be quite a few people living in the West who'd like to adopt a Maine Coon cat and they would like to adopt one from a Russian breeder because they do have a certain style.  I sense, although I don't have hard evidence to support this feeling, that the top Russian breeders of Maine Coon cats might be superior to breeders from other countries.  I am putting aside Putin's invasion of Ukraine when writing this article. Some people might object to dealing in anyway with a Russian business on account of that barbaric and illegal invasion. We should remember that Russia has quite a strong cat fancy. They like their cats and they love their purebred cats particularly the Maine Coon. It is in fact a cat breed which is quite naturally suited to the Russian way of life and climate. There's lots of space in Russia with a relatively low population and therefore there are going to be houses with large grounds ...
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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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