First of all: Maine Coons are addictive! Think about engaging with them. You can´t live without Coonies anymore, if you have learned to love them.

The origin of the Maine Coon is the Working Cat - the mouser of the farmers in Maine in the northeast of the USA. This breed is one of the oldest natural breeds and exists since the end of the 19th century.Selective breeding started later round about 40 years ago. In 1968 six breeder founded the Maine Coon Breeders and Fanciers Association (MCBFA).

There are still people believing the fairy tale Maine Coons emerged from a crossbreeding between wildcat and racoon. But this is biologically impossible. Probably the breed originated in matings between different shorthaired and longhaired cats.

However the breed emerged from, it is sure that these American Forest Cats developed in nature without human intervention, other than man-made breeds.

It is not easy to stick to facts describing the character of the Maine Coon, if you are already living with them. Maine Coons love to accompany their owner without being importunate. They are a felicitous composition of a gentle lap cat and an agile kitty cat. They are intelligent and self-assured, serene and curious, they like to be cuddled, they are kittenish, funny, affectionate and well-tempered. Through their playfulness but also placidness Maine Coons are perfect indoor living cats despite their size.

They are very social and companionable and should not be living without cat fellows but always in the companionship of another cat, which is of course true for the most other cats too. Maine Coons have some funny peculiarities and this makes them so special. They like to "natter" - to their owners, to other cats or sometimes just to themselves. Many Maine Coons curr in a specific manner to welcome you or to respond on questions. Surprisingly they have a very low voice in discrepance to their quite large and energetic appearance.

Coonies like to eat with their paws, using them like a spoon. They also enjoy playing with water. They dip toys in their water bowls and one of the favourite places to be is the washbasin.

Describing the appearence of these gentle giants of the North American Forests you start with the size. Maine Coons are large, muscular cats. The average weight of Tomcats usually is 6-9 kg (13-20 pounds), of females 4-6 kg (9-13 pounds).
It takes about 4 years for a Maine Coon to be grown to full size. The medium to large body of the Maine Coon is muscular and broad-chested. The body should be long and from rectangular appearance. They have muscular long legs, large paws and between their toes grows fur having the function of snow shoes.

Remarkable is the medium long coat which is partly longer and partly shorter and the long bushy tail. The tail should be as long as the body, wide at base, and tapering in the end with long flowing hairs. The coat is heavy and shaggy. Coonies have smooth and soft undercoat and chunkier even guard hair. It is short in the face, on the shoulders and the forelegs and longer on the back legs and belly. The undercoat keeps the Coonie warm, the longer guard hair protects them from rain and snow.

A lot of Maine Coons have a ruff, at least in winter time. Length and closeness of the coat changes with the seasons and clime.

The coat feels - surprisingly for this quite wild looking cats - very silky.

The eyes of the Maine Coon are large, wide and slightly oblique setted and can be in shades of green, gold, green-gold or copper.

The head is medium in width and slightly longer in length than width with a squareness to the muzzle and has high cheekbones and a strong chin. The nose is medium long with a slightly concave profile.

The large ears are wide at base, tapering to appear pointed filled with long fur. Especially if the ears are tipped at the end with fur they give the Maine Coon their Lynx-like appearance.

All colors and patterns are allowed in Maine Coons, beside chocolate, lilac, cinnamon and point-patterns.
The terms used to describe the coat colors and patterns are confusing for a lot of people. In fact, it isn´t that complicated.

The coat description gives us information about

1. base colour or base colours of the cat
2. the coat pattern or the absence of a coat pattern
3. if the cat has white coat parts or not
4. different modifications of the base color (dilution, silver)

1.) There are two base colours: black and red

2.) Additional to the base colour we find a term saying us which coat pattern the cat has - as long as it have one. A cat with a pattern is called agouti, a cat without pattern is called non-agouti. Agouti means the cat is a tabby cat. This is the term you will find in the coat description. Further you find a description of the pattern so as mackerel (narrow tabby) or classic (broader tabby).
If the cat doesn´t have a pattern the colour remains bare or you add the term "solid". That means a black cat is called "black" or "black solid".

3.) White can come up in each combination with the base colours. It can appear in different extent. The cat can have just white paws or it can have white paws, legs and also chest and belly are white, there are the highwhite cats (there is more white than colour on the cat) and also complete white cats.
(short comment to white cats: the gene which causes the white colour is connected with the sense of hearing. That is why complete white cats often are deaf).

The term "white" tells us if there is white or not, but not to which extend. For example a black-white might be a black cat with white paws or a cat that is more white than black.

4.) One modification is the dilution. That means that different genes causes that the base colour seems to be diluted. With dilution a black cat becomes blue and a red cat becomes cream.

Another modification is silver. Silver is not a colour, but comes with a colour. For example there are black-silver-tabbys or red-silver-tabbys or if they have also dilution they are blue-silver-tabbys or cream-silver-tabbys.

If you have a non-agouti cat the silver is called smoke. Than you have black-smokes, red-smokes, blue-smokes and cream-smokes.

The hairs of a silver cat is partly hollow, there is no pigment in it. Because of that it seems to be white. Just the upper part of the hairs are coloured. There are different extends of this: From two thirds hollow and one third coloured up to just the very tops are coloured (this is then called shaded).

It is also possible that the base colours appear together, for example parts of the coat of a black cat are red. This is called tortie. If this cat would be an agouti-cat you would say tortie-tabby and it is usual to shorten this to torbie. Then you would call a black cat with red parts and tabby black-torbie and a blue cat with cream parts and tabby blue-torbie.

By the way: Torties and torbies are (beside a very rare genetical mutation) always female.

The terms list now following informations:

Base colour or base colours + pattern or not + with white or not + diluted or not - with silver or not.

Any combination between the plus signs is possible.

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