Posts

7 times the normal enquiries about adopting a Maine Coon in NZ during Covid

-
Image
This is a short note because I don't have much information on this topic but I'm reliably told that, in New Zealand, enquiries for the purchase of Maine Coons increased from 15-20 per week to about 20 per day. This is very much in line with the information that I have about a surge in mainly dog but some cat adoptions in the UK over the period of the pandemic.  Large, loved Maine Coon. Photo: screenshot. In terms of the pandemic, in the UK, life has been back to normal, more or less, for quite a long time now which would have put a stop this dramatic increase in adoptions of cats and dogs. But, in New Zealand they are still in a lockdown which will be dropped if the rate of vaccination is more than 90%. I would expect, therefore, that this high level of enquiries to adopt a Maine Coon, which means purchasing one from a breeder, will continue. People just want company during extensive lockdowns. And they see these strange circumstances as an ideal opportunity to adopt a cat o...
Post a Comment
Location: New Zealand
Read more

How Maine Coons got their name

-
Image
The title is bold and confident. I am not that confident about this! But I think I know why Maine Coons have their strange name. Of all the cat breed names the Maine Coon is perhaps the strangest. The first half of it makes sense because this all-American cat hails, predominantly, from the state of Maine. That's fine but what about the 'Coon' part of the name? That's initially baffling. How Maine Coons got their name. These early 'coon cats' looked like standard large domestic cats. No selectively bred Maine Coon features per the breed standard. Just regular cats. Image in the public domain and I am thankful to Sarah Hartwell's website messybeast.com. They used to call the early Maine Coons 'coon cats' in lower case, no capitalization. The Lowell Sun (a local newspaper, I presume) on November 25, 1893 reported on 'coon cats'. Here is the report, verbatim: "A correspondent of Science tells of seeing in a private house in Chicago recent...
Post a Comment
Location: Maine, USA
Read more

6-month-old male Maine Coon scratches everything and sucks the tip of his tail. What can his caregiver do?

-
Image
A Reddit.com user (u/missandei86) appears to have recently adopted a young Maine Coon cat. He's a handsome blue Maine Coon cat with golden eyes. His human caregiver also says that he has a great personality and is super affectionate. He is also loud and he begs for food. 6-month-old male Maine Coon scratches everything and sucks the tip of his tail. What can the owner do? Photo: u/missandei86. I get the distinct impression, from the description, that this Maine Coon is feeling insecure. This accounts for the begging for food and constant vocalisations with his owner. And when a cat scratches a lot, they deposit scent on the objects that they scratch which is reassuring to them. And if a cat is sucking the tip of the tail this looks to me like a cat that has been weaned too early .  He is sucking his tail for reassurance. It's a bit like a boy who still sucks his thumb although he is too old to do it. Boys and girls who do this do it because they feel anxious. And I think thi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Can Maine Coons be black?

-
Image
Yes, Maine Coons can be black. The cat associations allow them to be in all colors and divisions of the traditional category. Most early Maine Coons were brown tabbies. Patterns and colors have been added over the years to an extensive range. I have a page on the full list! Click here to see it if you wish . In the meantime, here are two black Maine Coons. Black Maine Coon. Photo copyright Helmi Flick. Black Maine Coon. Photo in the public domain.
Post a Comment
Read more

Maine Coon with the longest tail died in a house fire

-
Image
This is a little, respectful reminder, as it is no longer news, about the very tragic story of Cygnus, the Maine Coon who held the Guinness World Record for the longest tail on a domestic cat. He lived with the then tallest domestic cat Acturus who was a Savannah cat. I think he was an F1 Savannah cat. But they lived in the same home with Lauren and Will Powers in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Cygnus's tail measured 44.6 cm or 17.58 inches. Cygnus. Photo: Guinness World Records. Their home caught fire on Sunday, November 12, 2017. Will and Lauren managed to escape but they both risked their lives, we are told, to find their cats before being forced to vacate the property. They left the doors and windows open hoping that their cats and two others, Yuki and Sirius, would find a way out. Will and Lauren. Screenshot from YouTube video. The fire occurred about one month after this video was published on YouTube. When the fire was put out, they searched for their beloved cats Cygnus and Ac...
Post a Comment
Location: Farmington Hills, MI, USA
Read more

Yoda Maine Coon

-
Image
One of those Yoda Maine Coons have surfaced again on Twitter. They are amazing. Wise beyond their years.  Yoda Maine Coon. Montage by MikeB from images in the public domain. There is nothing more to say except that Yoda Maine Coon is a human creation as is Yoda. The cat was created through artificial selection as opposed to natural selection (Darwin's theory). And Yoda was created by Stuart Freeborn for Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic.
Post a Comment
Read more

Picture of a Maine Coon looking out of the window

-
Image
It sort of brings it hope to you, the difference in size of the Maine Coon and regular domestic cats, when they are looking out of the window together. Neat photo. Picture of a Maine Coon looking out of the window. Photo: Pinterest Size is not all, however. Did you know that the Maine Coon is predisposed to suffering from hip dysplasia and that hip dysplasia in Maine Coons could be much reduced if they were selectively bred smaller ? The larger the body mass of the cat the more likely it is that they will have the disease. That's something they don't tell you when afficionados drool over humungous Maine Coons bred in Russia. Apparently 37% of Maine Coons will end up suffering from hip dysplasia according to a study. Click on the link above to see facts about this disease and Maine Coon cats.
Post a Comment
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

The extreme Maine Coon face

-
Image
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...
Read more

Maine Coon Size - this is a huge one!

-
Image
  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...
Read more

Comparison of a black smoke Maine Coon at 6 weeks and 6-years-of-age

-
Image
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...
Read more

Average lifespan of Maine Coon cat

-
Image
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 ...
Read more

Eerie picture of a Maine Coon sitting like a human on a chest of drawers

-
Image
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...
Read more

Tortoiseshell Maine Coon with split-face

-
Image
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...
Read more

Are Maine Coons illegal in some countries, states or territories?

-
Image
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...
Read more

Difference between Maine Coon and domestic long hair

-
Image
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...
Read more

No part of a Maine Coon cat should be exaggerated

-
Image
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...
Read more

2 top Russian Maine Coon cat breeders which ship internationally

-
Image
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 ...
Read more