Last Updated on May 24, 2026 by admin
Look at his front paws. If your Maine Coon has six or seven toes on each one and walks like he’s wearing snowshoes, that isn’t a defect. That’s a 200-year-old job description.
Maine Coons are the breed that worked their way into recognition. They came over on European merchant ships — possibly Viking, possibly later — bred with shorthairs in New England, and earned their living in barns and on schooners through the 1800s. The ones with extra toes were prized. Sailors paid more for them. The thinking was simple: more toes meant better balance on a pitching deck and a better grip on a frozen rope. In a Maine winter, those wide, extra-toed paws acted as natural snowshoes.
That trait was prized enough that in 2015, TICA created a separate breed designation for them — Maine Coon Polydactyl, or MCP. The breed standard allows up to seven toes per foot.
If you own one, you’ve already noticed the other half of the inheritance.
He’s not “big.” He’s still growing.
Most cat breeds reach full size by year one. A Maine Coon doesn’t finish until somewhere between three and five. Males commonly top out at 15 to 25 pounds. Females usually settle between 10 and 15.
The growth is slow and uneven. He’ll be ribby and gangly through year two, then start filling out across the shoulders and chest like a teenager who suddenly needs his uncle’s coat.
If a vet has called him “overweight” at age two without weighing the breed against the breed standard, get a second opinion from someone who has actually seen a Maine Coon at full size. Most haven’t.
The talking is not a phase.
The chirps. The trills. The little Donald Duck mutter when you open the fridge. Maine Coons are vocal at a level other cats simply aren’t — and the sound is not a meow. It’s somewhere between a purr and a question.
According to The Cat Fanciers’ Association, the breed is famously chatty, with a soft, high-pitched voice that doesn’t match the body it’s coming out of. Breed historians tie this back to their working past. On a farm or a ship, a quiet, conversational signal was more useful than a yowl that carried half a mile. The chirp travels just far enough — to the next stall, the next deck, the next person.
If your Maine Coon follows you into the kitchen and trills at you while you make coffee, he isn’t asking for food. He’s narrating his morning.
Yes, the water thing is real.
Most cats avoid water. Maine Coons have a water-resistant double coat and, frequently, an active interest in any sink, bathtub, or watering can. Longtime breed sources like Maine Coon Cat Nation trace this back to the ship-cat ancestry — these were animals that lived around water, drank from puddles on deck, and weren’t bothered when a wave came over the rail.
If your Maine Coon sits on the edge of the tub and dips one mittened paw in to test it, you don’t have a weird cat. You have a typical one.
The misconception worth clearing up
Maine Coons are not aggressive. The size suggests otherwise — a 22-pound cat with a feathered tail and tufted ears looks like he should be a problem — but the temperament is the opposite. The breed is famously patient with children, slow to swat, and tolerant of being picked up by people who have no idea how heavy he’s about to be.
What they are is observant. He will sit on the back of a chair and watch you for an hour without blinking, and you will not know what he has concluded.
What it’s actually like
You own a cat that takes five years to grow up, sounds like a small bird at the back door, may have extra toes, will follow you into the shower, weighs as much as a small dog, and is — somehow, despite all of it — gentle.
That isn’t a coincidence. That’s the breed doing what 200 years of ship decks, Maine barns, and selective sailor preference asked it to do.
Tell us your Maine Coon’s name in the comments 👇