Thread: What made you choose a Maine Coon?

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.