new baby

Our Maine Coon has decided that my laptop is an offensive creature and should never claim my lap. It has been quite difficult for both my writing and my work.

Why do I care what my kitty thinks? Ah, you are also unaware that adopting a Maine Coon is quite similar to bringing a small mountain lion into your home. I was once, too.

But let me explain how this happened.

Several years ago, we lost a kitty to lung cancer. It was very hard as we’d had him for many years, and it came fast. From the time he started showing signs of being sick until we had to make the very hard choice was less than a week. In that time, he’d lost 1/3 of his body weight and couldn’t breathe without great difficulty.

We were also three weeks away from the birth of our second child.

We had a second cat, and he was incredibly lonely with the loss of his brother. So, I did a lot of research on cats to see what kind would be good with kids. The internet was all but unanimous in saying a Maine Coon was great with kids and perfect for families. The internet is seldom in that much agreement, and when I learned my mother was friends with a Maine Coon breeder, I figured it was fate.

So, I called my mom’s friend, put our name in for a kitty and sent her the deposit.

She did tell us that Maine Coon males were around twenty-five pounds, sometimes more, and were we okay with it.

I thought of my sister’s twenty pound cat and figured, yes, sure.

Some of you are thinking, five pounds is a large difference. It’s 25% more cat than your comparison point.

Others are laughing at my naiveté.  You see, the size difference between a fat 20 pound cat and a full grown Maine Coon who is not even remotely fat at 25 pounds is, well, you can see the picture above.

Yeah. The cat carrier we had for him? He doesn’t fit. We had to get him a dog carrier. He doesn’t fit in any cat bed we’ve bought him, but he has commandeered the toddler sofa. He can’t sprawl out in it, but he fits. Mostly.

He is a beautiful, majestic creature. By and large, their reputation as gentle giants is well deserved. He has been amazingly good with the kids, and it helps that he almost outweighs them. See, they can’t pick him up even if they want to, so there’s no carrying him around the house by his upper half without supporting his lower half.

He loves to be part of the family. There is no hiding under beds for this cat. Nope. He greets guests at the door and demands worshipful pets. He then sits down in the family room so he can be one of the crowd.

Some have told me he reminds them of a dog in a cat body.

But no. He is still an Egyptian god. Just ask him.

When he is displeased, it is not like displeasing an eight pound cat. Oh no.

He hates my curling iron. The other morning, he reminded me of this by sending it careening across the bathroom. He then looked at me, and I swear he raised a brow, challenging me to do something about it.

Normally, he’s good about being brushed or having his claws clipped. When he’s not, it takes DH to pin him while I clip.

This brings us back to how large and how sweet he is when I was trying to write on my new laptop.

Imagine being curled up on your recliner, snuggled into your favorite blanket. Now, imagine your Maine Coon has also decided it’s his favorite blanket, but only when you’re warming it for him.

Now, imagine the cat you see above coming bounding across the room on thunder paws and launching himself onto your lap.

He landed with enough force to send the recliner into the wall behind it and knocked the breath out of me.

He then proceeded to curl up on my “lap”, spreading himself from just under my chin to down across my knees. He then rolled over to give me his tummy to rub as he purred.

Fortunately for my new computer, I got it onto the side table in time. Barely.

So, while the computer survived, writing was done for the night.

And my Maine Coon claimed his rightful throne. Just ask him.

 

How about you? Have any pets that are less than fond of your electronic devices? How do they respond? What do you do about it?