Thread: What made you choose a Maine Coon?

We all know Maine Coons are the best breed ever, but what made you choose the breed?

I will post our story first to get it going.
6 years ago me and fiance at the time moved in together and both loved cats and decided to 'rescue' one, so we found a breed rescue place with every intention of taking in a persian

When we went to view our possible persian, as we walked into where the cages were the lady let out this huge black boy Maine Coon called George, he just followed us around chattering to us whilst we were looking at our persian, we nearly changed our mind and chose George, but he looked really happy and comfortable with life, the persian looked scared and in need of a lot of love, so we took the persian home, she was already named Purrdie and she is a gorgeous white Chinchilla
Think we always wanted a Maine Coon after that and decided (after Purrdie had a short spell of illness in the summer) that we would not want to be without another cat, so took the plunge and started searching for a silver tabby maine coon

No regrets!

About two years ago my husband was at a clients house and they had a Maine Coon. He came back home that evening and kept talking about this fantastic cat he had seen. He said it spoke to him all evening and then sat on his lap and he had never seen such a beautiful cat. I had never heard of them before that. I looked them up and agreed they were a king amongst cats and we have always said if we were ever in a position to have a cat that would be the one we'd get. Well the timing seemed right and I mentioned it to my husband one evening a couple of weeks ago, had a chat with my dog breeder to ask if she thought I'd have a problem with my dogs and a cat and the next weekend we were driving down to see a litter! My son keeps telling his friends we are getting a lion

Originally Posted by Karena

My son keeps telling his friends we are getting a lion

Haha! My son came home today and said "No one believes me mum when I told my friends how big our cat will grow!" bless him.

Had a longhaired cat years ago (ordinary moggie) but it was just a fantastic looking cat. Sadly it got killed in a car accident on the morning we were bringing it to the vets to get neutered
I always said that if I was ever in a position to get a cat again, I would get a longhaired cat.
My husband and I recently bought our apartment and we had been considering a dog but after careful consideration, thought a cat would suit living in an apartment much better then a dog.
After doing some research on pedigree breeds I chose the Maine Coon. My Aunt had 2 Persians cats but I just prefer that proper wild cat look and they sounded like such characters that I won won over.
Contacted 2 breeders and got a chance to visit one and have a look at her cats and kittens and the rest is history

I first read about them in a novel years and years ago and thought I would love one.

Last year at the perth ag show we saw one and I told dh that I'd always wanted one of them, so after discussing it he said I could get one.... the boy we saw was so beautiful.

When I was 3yr old we moved into our new home which unfortunately had a pretty bad mouse problem. From what Im told it wasnt uncommon to see one per day. So my dad went off to a cat home to find the best mouser cat he could find.
At the cat home, he walked along the row of pens looking in. Each cat in turn would turn and look at him. About three quarters of the way down the line of pens he arrived at a pen with a black cat in it and put his hand on the pen bars to entice the cat closer.
It worked, a little too well in fact. Within seconds he was nursing a big scratch down his hand!
..and so our first ever cat which I named 'Dumper' (as in Dumper truck, hey.. I was 3 at the time!) come home.
I absolutely adored Dumper. Not only for the size she grew to which was pretty big, but for her ability to do anything she wanted without any regard to anyone else. Very few people would be allowed to smooth her. If they got close she would hiss, a bit closer and it would be louder hiss, within smoothing range and you'd better be wearing protective gear.
Me however, she would come and sit on my lap. Let me smooth her. Play games with me etc. She quickly became 'my' cat
Sadly, as is inevitable, she died when I was 16/17yr old. The memories are awesome and I definately have an affection for cats which are intelligent and have plenty of character.

Now coming up to present day. Our previous home didnt lend itself to looking after cats as it was near two busy roads and when I say near, I could easily throw a stone onto them from our front door. However, we've recently moved into a large house which is outside of the city & in a nice quiet cauldesac (if I spelt that correctly). Plenty of room both in the house and out in the garden which started my 'hmmmm we could get cats..' thoughts running again.

So after a little bit of browsing the web we chose.. Bengals!
Yep. Thats right. Not coonies, but bengals. My wife being a tiger lover thought they looked amazing. It wasnt until a bit later we stumbled on a few write ups with words to the effect of "these cats will destroy your home if they want to and there isnt a lot you can do about it". I wasnt willing to take the risk of having two mobile furry shredders moving from room to room so the search for 'our cats' started up again.

Now the bit about coonies
A few days later, and I dont know why I didnt think of this before, I typed something like 'breeds of cats' into google and spent a few minutes going through a long list of breeds. Within that list was 'estimated size when fully grown' and Im thinking "surely a typo!!! What type of cat gets to 18lbs in weight!!!"
open new web window
goto google
type 'maine coon' in and hit enter
click on images
Shout "holy (insert word)! Sue.. come see this!!!" to wife who is in next room.

Im a bloke, we tend to like big things. So big cats which have such awesome markings were an instant hit for me. I then spent the remaining day light hours researching maine coons finding out that they have excellent temperments, huge depth of character, trainable, one of the most intelligent cats, use front paws a bit like hands, very smooth silky coat, minimal maintenance needed of coat, arent really lap cats, have a unique meow, some like to talk to you and the selling point for me...
They sometimes pick one person in a family to bond with them

From that point on it was a done deal. I bought books on them, searched the web & filled up my favourites bar with breeders and websites with good info, spent hours and hours looking for kittens until finding the absolute perfect pair for myself & Sue.

Good question…

When I was a child, my neighbours had this beautiful, big long haired cat. I don’t think it was a real maine coon, but one of its parents most probably was. My parents didn’t like the idea of pets with long hair, so I was only allowed short haired cats (and dogs for that matter) as pets. But I fell in love with the looks of our neighbours’ cat and knew that one day I wanted to own a cat like that as well.
When I went to university, I wasn’t allowed to have pets in the student dorm, and I missed it so much, that when my boyfriend and I decided to rent a place together after we graduated, the first thing we did was get pets! Our first cat was our house cat, Pixel. But since we would be out of the house all day for our jobs, we decided it would be better if she had a friend to play with. I very much liked to have a pedigree cat (yes, one with long hair), and so I started to do research on the internet. I bumped into two cat breeds that I liked: Norwegian Forest Cats and Maine Coons. After reading more about them and looking at lots of cattery websites and pictures, in the end, I decided that the looks and character of the Maine Coon appealed to me a little more than that of the Norwegian Forest Cat (although they still come in a second place, especially since I got to know the breed better thanks to visiting and participating in cat exhibitions).
I then started searching the net to see if there were catteries close to where I live; and I bumped into the website of cattery of the white witch. The cattery is only at a 10mins drive from our house, and at that time, Willow and his brothers and sisters were only about 3 weeks old. I saw Willows picture on the website and immediately fell in love with him. I sent a mail to the cattery telling them a little about myself and asking whether Willow would still be available and if it was possible to get more pictures. The same day I received an answer from the cattery, telling me more about the way they work (medical tests, how they raise the kittens, …), about their cats and the kittens and attached to the mail were lots of pictures. It seemed like we immediately got along, and when Ollie got home in the evening, I showed him the e-mail, cattery website and the pictures. He also thought that Willow was a beautiful kitten, and since I was having some time off, I decided to go and visit the cattery a week or two later. I spent almost the entire afternoon at the cattery, and have to say that I also immediately decided that Willow would be coming to live with us.
When Ollie got home that night, he asked me how it was, and I was very enthousiastic of course. He was like: “ok… so I guess you made up your mind then!”. Haha He didn’t really have any say in it, but lucky for me, he didn’t object!
After Willow came to live with us, we started to love coonies even more, so when that same year, Willows half brothers and sisters were born, we very quickly decided that the red male in the litter, Indy, would join our family as well.
And since then, we got Maine Coon addicted! So at the end of 2009 we welcomed n°3: our beautiful black princess, Esme. And I’m pretty sure that from now on, we’ll always have Maine Coons in our lives.

Thats a lovely story Diane.

Well, my hubby went to work in the US and his friend had a Maine Coon kitten and whilst he was there, he was telling me how great this kitten was and that he was such charachter. When he got back he told me that if we was ever to get a cat then we will choose a MC.

4 years passed and we never really thought about it anymore, until a lovely stray cat came to our lives last summer, she came from nowehere and decided to live with us for 3 months. Despite searching for her owners etc, we never found them. We really got attached to her and even called her Ruby. Then one day, she just didnt come back, we looked for her for days but with no joy. So we assumed that she must have gone back to her original owners.

The whole family was so sad when she left and we realised what we have been missing. So, we decided that maybe a pet cat would be lovely. Then we remembered the MC that my hubby met 4 years ago. So we decided to research the breed and the more we read about them, the more we knew that a MC would be a suitable pet for our family. Now, the rest is history! We love him to bits... and yes NO REGRETS!

About 20 years ago, my Dad heard about these giant domestic cats from a friend at work. He couldn't believe such a thing existed so he went to the library and did some digging (ah, the days before the internet was in everyone's home...) and decided he'd like to get one when our moggie eventually popped off this mortal coil. My folks are great with cats so moggie (Smudge) was with us for 19 years before she finally left us, and by that point my Mum couldn't face losing another cat so they scrapped the idea of getting a Coonie. But I never did.
So 10 years later, I move in with my fella and we get married. But we lived in a tiny flat (and I do mean TINY) and it just wouldn't have been fair to the cat so we scrapped the idea.
So we get married, and then bought a 3-story town house (lots of stairs for a kitten to exhaust itself on!) in a lovely part of the world 3 years ago and I thought "Great, I can get my giant pussy cat!". At this point, I find out that my hubby is allergic to cats - no idea why this small detail hadn't come out before now but there you go. So the idea got scrapped again.
Interestingly, last year we had a few problems and separate; I was devastated but the silver lining in my complete misery was realising that I could now - finally - get a cat! So I invested a lot of energy into doing more homework about the breed and what would be involved in keeping a Coonie - I also looked at Norwiegan Forest Cats and Bengals but MC's just appealed on every level - independent, affectionate, beautiful, BIG, loyal, clownish and clumsy. So I contacted some breeders in the local area and found two that had litters with blue or silver tabbies.
By this point, my mind had been made up and I can't wait to find my dream kitty. Then my hubby opens negotiations about a reconciliation and I had the awful feeling my cat plans would have to be scrapped again, so the kitten became part of the negotiations! Now me, my husband and Freyja (my 4 month old blue tortie tabbie girl) all live happily together, and after a week of my husband not being able to breath whilst he reacted to her, his allergies have cleared up (admittedly, with the aid of an asthma preventer) and he can't leave Freyja alone any more than I can! He's even made up a song that he sings to her when he gets in from work! He's absolutely besotted with her, and although she's only been with us a month, it feels like she's always been here. Best decision I've made in a long time and I'm wondering how long I should leave it before I try to persuade him we need another one!

I wouldn't wait FreyjaRoMaine,he must have heard about the saying "One mainecoon is never enough"by now.
We didn't choose a mainecoon as a breed,I love animals as I work with them but having to pick our last domestic cat up off the road had said no more cats,I cope,just with road accident cats brought into work but it is different when it is your own.I was not really a cat person anyway dogs were my forte. I went with my daughter to see a MC kitten & they wanted a home for the mother,my daughter persuaded me that as it was hubbys birthday coming up it would be a lovely present for him & the rest is history.Six MC's later !
We have a news letter at work & it is a standing joke now that every time one is issued everyone looks to see if non cat "Jackie"has added yet another one to her gang & on the day they all go up for boosters we have quite an audience wanting to see & cuddle the gentle giants.....
I think we have stopped adding to the family now but who knows,you just have to cuddle & luv them.