Thread: Personality difference between male and female Maine Coons?

I feel that there is quite a bit of individual variation, so it is somewhat hard to generalize. Our two girls, for example, are very different from one another. The younger one is definitely a dominant personality, and would have to be considered the alpha cat here. When we got her as a young kitten, she growled and hissed at our adult male MC mix (who had been the neighborhood alpha cat, beating up every other cat around). Both he and we, were totally astonished! The other girl is quite reserved most of the time, and somewhat timid in interacting with the other cats. The girls are definitely the bigger cuddlers of the four (now that the boys are past young kitten stage).

The boys we have and have had are a bit more playful than the girls and more willing to be handled. E.g., most of them have liked to have you butt heads with them (and will sometimes initiate this). Both our two year old and the previous MC mix would roll around on their backs and let you bury your face in their furry bellies and really interact physically. Certainly our two girls would never engage in this sort of physically aggressive play.

As for intelligence, that varies more from cat to cat than among the sexes, I would say. Our "alpha cat" Bella is clearly very smart. The male MC mix we had was extremely intelligent. Understood a large number of words. For example, when out walking him at night if we saw somebody else coming along with their dog but didn't know who it was he would get nervous, but if I knew I could tell him who it was and he would relax if it was one of the dogs that he liked. He understood the names of half a dozen dogs and cats in the neighborhood. On the other hand, we had a male MC that died tragically at two, and while he was a wild and fun guy, he never seemed that smart.

Some people think that personality may also be somewhat color related--particularly with sex-linked colors like red. All I know is that our two year old red male reminds me the very most of my much missed red MC mix, personality wise.

Hope this helps!