Before cat registries and breeder websites, Mainers were already showing off coon cats at agricultural fairs. Of course they were. If you had a barn cat large enough to make the livestock reconsider their choices, you were going to mention it. Men have bragged about less. Many still do.
One Maine Coon even made it to Madison Square Garden. In 1895, a brown tabby named Cosey won Best Cat at a major New York cat show. The competition reportedly included ocelots, wildcats, and civets, because the nineteenth century had a relaxed approach to categories.⁴ Cosey won anyway. A Maine cat went to New York, beat the exotics, and presumably went home unimpressed.
Maine eventually made the relationship official. In 1985, the Legislature named the Maine Coon the state cat. The law is admirably short: “The state cat shall be the Maine coon cat.”⁵ That is Maine at its best. No purple prose. No civic throat-clearing. Just the cat.
There is also, because this is the modern world and nothing can remain simple, the import business. Ukraine appears to be one of the notable sources for imported Maine Coons. One Ukraine-based Maine Coon cattery advertises worldwide shipping, including to the United States, and a Maine cattery says it has worked with breeder networks in Ukraine and Russia.⁶ That somehow fits. The official cat of Maine, shaggy survivor of barns and bad weather, now comes to us in part from a country that has had to make survival look ordinary. A local legend with an international supply chain. A war-country cat for a state that respects anything stubborn enough to get through winter.
But my friend did not ask about the history of the breed. He was asking a practical question with some sadness under it. What kind of animal can keep company with a man who still wants to travel? What kind of companion does not require walks in sleet, kennel negotiations, and the guilty theater of leaving a dog behind? What kind of creature can make a house feel less empty without taking over the whole calendar?
A dog might love him more obviously. I still believe that. I will defend dogs against all challengers, including cats, economists, and most members of Congress. But a Maine Coon might fit the life he actually has. It might be large enough to count as a presence, social enough to be company, independent enough to let him go see his family, and ridiculous enough to improve a morning just by entering the room.
In the end, I decided a Maine Coon might be exactly right for my friend. Not because I had softened on cats. I have standards. Because now I understood the loophole.
A Maine Coon is not really a cat.
It is a 25-pound Golden Retriever disguised as a wild lynx.
That is how they get you.
Bibliography
1. Maine Secretary of State, “Maine Coon Cat,” Maine Secretary of State Kids’ Page.
2. Cat Fanciers’ Association, “Maine Coon Cat Article.”
3. The International Cat Association, “Maine Coon.”
4. Cat Fanciers’ Association Foundation, “Cosey’s Collar.”
5. Maine Legislature, Title 1, §217, “State cat.”
6. Tassel Ears Maine Coon Cattery, “About / FAQ”; Ruff and Tufts Cattery, home page.