Patriotic pet lovers can proudly call the Maine Coon a Native American breed. Maine Coons have an interesting back story, rife with inane speculation and possible connections to major events of world history.
Some have hypothesized that Maine Coons resulted from breeding a cat with a raccoon, but this is a genetic impossibility. Others have suggested that as Marie Antoinette was fleeing to America to escape seizure and beheading, her smugglers boarded her six cats with all her other belongings. Although she was eventually found, arrested, and beheaded, her longhaired cats made the trans-Atlantic journey to Maine, bred with American cats, and started a new breed altogether. Still others have argued that they came over much sooner, circa 11th century, on Viking ships, and the resemblance between Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest Cats adds some credibility to this theory. What is known for sure, however, is that these cats make great pets and companions. Continue reading The Massive Maine Coon Cat . . .
