Thread: Can somebody tell me if my kitten is a Maine Coon?

Originally Posted by Antonia

The pics on the Dutch forum often show rather more ‘sweet looking’ cats, with faces like our Tatja and El Monto. And when someone does post a pic of the other type, it often gets commented upon… with people saying how they’re not too keen on the ‘extreme’ features.

Of course 'sweet looking' is a matter of opinion, but I'm not quite sure what is meant. Perhaps less wild looking? I'm curious about this because I think it interesting that there might be a difference between American MCs and European MCs. There are some differences in American versus European & UK appearance between certain dog breeds that have gone so far as to be classified as separate breeds. I wonder if something like that might happen with MCs.

I think I understand what Antonia's referring to, but don't know the best way to illustrate the difference.

I know two breeders and both explained to me that there are generally two preferences in the MC show world - one is the 'extreme' look which is apparently very close to the original look of the MC and is quite feral (big puffy muzzles and long ear tips are two of the features I recall them mentioning). They believed the extreme look faired better at TICA and FiFe shows than at GCCF. Both breeders I know aim for the more extreme look and so most of their kittens are quite feral looking.

The other preference is for something less extreme - i.e. less feral (what I think Antonia's referring to as sweet); the wild/feral look is not going to be to everyone's tastes and the two breeders felt that less extreme MC's had better success at GCCF.

I don't think for one second this means that an extreme MC can't also be sweet-looking, or sweet-natured; just less feral or wild looking.

My Freyja is apparently fairly 'extreme' in looks, and it's a look that I personally love. Without any 'wild cat' markings, she can still look quite lion-like and I believe it's because of her muzzle. Wicca's muzzle has become more pronounced as she's got older but I don't think she's as extreme as Freyja (her black colouring might be deceiving though!).

Karen & candes, thanks for your further explanations.
I once came across a web page where there was mention of a ‘sweet’ look as opposed to a ‘feral’ look in MCs… pity I can’t find that page anymore.

I tend to agree with candes that the feral look is not what MCs are supposed to have looked like originally. It’s just a look that caught on with breeders/fanciers.

Attached is a pic of Minnie’s and Tatja’s faces. I think there’s a clear difference. Beside the bigger ears Minnie also has more angular features, whereas Tatja’s face is altogether softer (or what I call sweeter).

Antonia, I really appreciate the side-by-side picture! Being new, references to different people's cats doesn't help much and I haven't figured out how to track down pictures of specific MCs. (Is there an easy way?) Many thanks.

Of course MC breeders that show their cats want to win, so they need to try to adhere to the MC standards for whatever organization they are showing under. Most organizations have their breed standards online so you can look at them. I know that TICA and CFA MC standards both mention "balance" in several places, so MCs with extremely large ears or the like definitely do not adhere to these standards. E.g., the TICA standard opens with this sentence: "Overall balance and proportion are essential to the Maine Coon and no one feature should dominate the eye's attention over any other."

As for "original" MCs, I think that if you look back at old pictures of long-haired cats from Maine, what you will see is some cats that look very much like CFA/TICA standard MCs of today, but also cats that look quite different, and certainly some that don't look "special" in any way. Writing the first breed standards was apparently fairly contentious since different breeders had different ideas of what a MC was supposed to look like.

Several people looking for MCs have posted sites of breeders that breed more "extreme" MCs, and from what I could see these people by and large do not show. Obviously some people may prefer this sort of look while others will not (I certainly do not). There may be more of such breeders in Europe, though I think that is unclear.

One of the things that I find interesting is how often somebody on this list, from some completely different part of the world, posts photos of their MC that looks very similar to one of ours. That is what standardization is supposed to do, it seems. Suppose there were people breeding, say, beagles with two inch long tails or one inch muzzles. Would we still consider these "beagles" or not? How would this be any different from breeding "Maine Coons" with extremely tall ears or huge muzzles?

The TICA MC page can be found:
TICA Maine Coon Breed Introduction

Check out both the Standard (text PDF) and the Seminar. The seminar links to a PDF presentation of the standard with lots of photos showing good/bad MC features and is a great way to learn what the breed is "supposed" to look like (note that for some reason the seminar PDF has been put in a zip archive).

The CFA standard can be found here:
Maine Coon Cat - Cat Fanciers' Association Breed Council

One of the best sites for historical info on MCs is PawPeds. I find the site quite hard to navigate, so I will directly link some useful MC components:

MC toplevel page:
PawPeds

Maine Coon Heritage Site:
PawPeds - Maine Coon Heritage Site

You can find a great deal of MC history by reading the articles/interviews:
List of articles

MC Ancestors site:
Maine Coon Ancestors - An archive of Maine Coon breeding cats and their breeders

Photos of early MCs:
Maine Coon Ancestors - An archive of Maine Coon breeding cats and their breeders.

Originally Posted by Walter Coonkat

Antonia, I really appreciate the side-by-side picture! Being new, references to different people's cats doesn't help much and I haven't figured out how to track down pictures of specific MCs. (Is there an easy way?) Many thanks.

Thanks... glad to be of help.
On the home page there's a tab 'Gallery'. If you click that and scroll down you find the members' galleries where they post pics of their cats.

Originally Posted by NCarver

One of the things that I find interesting is how often somebody on this list, from some completely different part of the world, posts photos of their MC that looks very similar to one of ours. That is what standardization is supposed to do, it seems.

You're right... I have seen a fair number of Minnie and El Monto lookalikes on here. Though in El Monto's case it's probably because the black smoke coloring is so distinctive it drowns out the details and you tend to think: "Wow, that one is so like mine!"

Also, thanks for all the links. The Pawpeds pages I already knew, and the other two are very interesting. I like the TICA Seminar with all the pictures... especially the last page about the 'tongue standard'.

Do I get it right that you don't expect the MC to develop into a more 'extreme' type? Perhaps that would be for the best... although I find that look utterly fascinating, it does carry tremendous risks to selectively breed for certain features.

Originally Posted by Antonia

Also, thanks for all the links. The Pawpeds pages I already knew, and the other two are very interesting. I like the TICA Seminar with all the pictures... especially the last page about the 'tongue standard'.

Guess they had to standardize everything somebody thought was important.

Here is a link to the original of these seminars that includes one for CFA that uses some different photos:
Maine Coon Seminar

Originally Posted by Antonia

Do I get it right that you don't expect the MC to develop into a more 'extreme' type? Perhaps that would be for the best... although I find that look utterly fascinating, it does carry tremendous risks to selectively breed for certain features.

People seem to be forgetting that the Maine Coon is supposed to be a "natural breed" rather than one that came about through human selective breeding. If you assume the breed standards represent a reasonable composite of the original long-haired cats found in Maine, then breeding cats that do not adhere to these standards effectively means that you are no longer breeding "Maine Coons." Some people might perhaps prefer a different look and that is fine, but I would consider that to mean that they don't really like the look of "Maine Coon" cats but rather some new--human produced--breed. I see no evidence that huge ears and muzzles are natural. I would expect there would be significant problems for cats with very large ears trying to live through Maine winters. In fact if you go back to really early pictures of cats from Maine, I think you will find that their ears are generally smaller than today's standard MC look. So breeding cats with even larger ears and still calling the cat a Maine Coon?

Furthermore, while people describe big ears and muzzles as "more feral looking," if one looks up photos of the African Wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica or just Felis lybica) from which all domestic cats are now known to be descended, you will find that they do not have giant ears or muzzles. So breeding for large ears and muzzles is pretty clearly human manipulation--certainly not getting the MC closer to its roots.

One of the first MC's brought to England was owned by a good friend of my mothers,I did have a cat magazine with article & photos in that I had kept for years but of course can't find it at the moment,all I can remember about it is that it was a brown tabby,ears just about the size of a normal cat but he was massive,looked a lot like the brown tabby on NCarvers link "Photos of early MC's".To think that when I was a teenager I cuddled a MC,would have loved one but was way beyond what we could have afforded then , making up for that now though...!
Going to start looking through some of the other links given.
Bet jt179 didn't think this thread would go so deep when asking about Blanco's pedigree or not,have to say the laying on the back of the couch pose does tend to sway towards some MC linage in there somewhere.