Maine Coon Cat

The Maine Coon Cat. The American cat. The most popular cat (at least in America). That is what I say. This breed has superseded the Persian that stood atop of all the rest until fairly recently. Some people including PetPlace.com think the Persian is still the most popular. I think that they are outdated. Why is the MC the most popular purebred cat breed? Mainly because of the wrong reasons. The Persian breed standard and breeders have got the contemporary Persian wrong. The Persian looks strange and unnatural while the Maine Coon cat looks totally natural and big and beautiful, all the elements required for a most popular cat breed. TICA breed standard supports this. I take a look at the breed standard on this page with a still image by Helmi Flick. On the following link I do something similar with a slide show.

Maine Coon Mykat Pecos Bill. Photo ©copyright Helmi Flick - please respect copyright - thank you.

If we look at the notes accompanying the photograph above we will readily see that a lot of the TICA breed standard descriptions refer in one way or another to the large size of this cat. The breed is, after all, the largest domestic cat breed as registered with the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA), a conservative can association that will not recognize an equally large cat the Savannah cat (and I am thinking a early generation of the Savannah cat).

The Maine Coon is long more than plain big. The TICA breed standard supports that assertion, "Large, long, substantial, rectangular". Whenever I have seen pictures of this cat with people I frequently see the cat's length highlighted. This cat can look rather messy because of the shaggy fur. I like this but the CFA it is claimed, prefer a more tidy, pretty, appearance and this is discussed on the following and subsequent pages: Maine Coon Cat 1.

The words accompanying the fine picture above are taken from the TICA breed standard but only in part due to practicalities. Here is some more on the standard:

TICA MC standard was last revised (at 21-5-09) on 1-01-05 over 4 years ago meaning that this is a very settled purebred cat. The Maine Coon has been around a long time.
No outcrosses are permissible. This means that breeding should stay within the Maine Coon breed.
Overall balance and proportion is important. The breed standard makes it clear that no one element (feature) should be outstanding. This means, in my language, that the cat should not be bred to extreme levels as is the case with some breeds such as the Persian and the Modern Siamese.
Boning and musculature should be substantial.
The tail should be at least as long as the body, wide at base and tapering.
See the full MC breed standard (TICA).
To Maine Coon cats.