These pictures of Oscar, a beautiful ginger-and-white tabby Maine Coon with Ru, a tortoiseshell-and-white, are nice for the reason that they show us how big Maine Coons are or can be because not all Maine Coons are enormous although they are the biggest domestic cat breed other than the high filial wild cat hybrids such as the F1 Savannah.
Oscar has a successful Instagram page. He is said to weigh around 12-14 kilograms which is 26-31 pounds. That puts him at the top end of domestic cat weight. There are bigger Maine Coon and their pictures are on the website but it’s quite unusual to see a smallish domestic cat (Ru) next to a large domestic cat like Oscar. I am guessing that Ru is a relatively small, dainty cat. She looks it to me.
Oscar lives with Penny and Rafiki in Melbourne, Australia, that country where the authorities have a troubled relationship with the feral cat, which does not stop many cat lovers enjoying great relationships with their cat companions.
At one time Oscar was overweight. We don’t know why. It may have been a medical issue. And he lost weight (hence the lower weight of 12 kg) due to stress when they moved home. All of us know that, for a cat, moving home is as stressful or more so than for humans because they are firmly fixed to their “home range” – the area which they regard as their own. This is usually around several acres for a domestic cat but which can be the inside of a house because domestic cats are very adaptable thanks to thousands of years of domesticated evolution.
Despite his stressful move, Oscar looks like a placid cat to me. He has that appearance. His character is described in the picture below:
The “occassionally affectionate” remark is interesting. I’d have thought that the affection would be more often than occassional. Gloria Stephens in her book Legacy of the Cat writes that Maine Coons are “not constantly demanding attention” and although “people orientated…they are not overdependent”.
