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I have a three year old ex breeding queen who we took as rehome 6 months ago. She has now been spayed but has had a least three litters. I am thinking of buying a kitten as company for Maisie , probably male Maine Coon. I wonder if anyone has any experience of similar situations and if this is likely to be a successful friendship? She does exhibit some 'mother' tendencies such as grooming me first thing in the morning !
hi there - welcome to the forum! well it's always a good idea, "have a maine coon, have two"! Maine Coons are quite social, and your breeding queen may have been used to company.
yddeaks, Welcome! Your Queen sounds great, pictures please. I love the way you say she grooms you in the morning. My OH says he loves the way our Ginger is so much like a dog, she loves to lick his hand when he is not petting her. As far as getting another, I say if one is good two is better! hahaha I am working on getting another.
mine has fits of what we call "licky-cuddles" - she'll stretch on the side of the chair we're sitting on, then she'll come and settle on our lap (wether we want it or not) and start licking our hands then rub her head on our hand. You know how cats lick their paw, then use it to clean up their face - that's what she does but with our hand. If we try to take our hand away, she'll grab it with both front paws and bring it back. Pirate.
hanks folks. I also picked up on the 'Ripley needs a friend' thread which helped a lot. There was a good suggestion about creating a family scent before they meet. I have had many cats over the years but Maisie is my first MC and I will never have anything else. She is so dog like without losing her feline characteristics. She had never been out untl she came to live with us but because we are rural and its very safe, I let her out. Every day is a new fascination for her. She has discovered birds , leaves, sticks (most of which come in on her tail which was clearly designed to sweep the path !) , badgers ,squirrels and the neighbours cat, whom she stalks, quietly intimidates then sneaks in to his kitchen and eats his dinner.
:rofl: and the great thing is that she will keep discovering - again and again and again! endless fun! ;-)
I am more and more convinced that the only thing you need about introducing a little friend is time. At first she'll hiss at him, she might hide for a little while - but she'll come round eventually and you'll end up finding them cuddling cosily together one day.
My mum's cat who was very silly (only liked my Mum - everyone else was prayed to bog off and leave her human, in her territory with her own mice and spiders for her to hiss at) never took to the little lost kitten we tried to introduce though. May be the difference between her and Ripley - other than Ripley is a nice, well bred MC and my mum's cat was a grumpy gutter cat in the first place - is that Ripley stays inside whereas my Mum's cat had the option to go sulk outside. She stayed outside until my Mum finally gave the kitten away. And then she came back in and cuddled with my Mum like nothing happened going like "kitten? what kitten?" Sigh.
I had a similar experience to yours, Alekto. I begged my mom to rescue a kitten; we brought it home and the introductions were horrible. Our resident cat was my baby, but she was a fierce hunter and a tough street fighter. Her mom was feral and it took her quite a few years to really calm down. There was no way we could have trusted her around a kitten after we saw her reaction, so we re-homed the kitten. If we had done any real research for introducing them, maybe it would've turned out differently. I do think a lot of it, though, was due to my cat just being extremely territorial. For years I thought all cats hissed and growled if you pet them while they were eating- my MC's actually start to purr. I think the general MC temperament is definitely suited to socializing, so I'd give it a go.
One Maine Coon is never enough. They are such wonderfully loving, sociable and entertaining cats, why not have another one?