Maine Coons on the whole are sociable, people-loving cats. If you get a Maine Coon, you’ll find it’s not actually that difficult to befriend it. I’ve lived with Maine Coons for over 20 years and share with you my top tips to build a strong bond.
To make your Maine Coon love you the key is to understand how cats convey love to each other and then mimic them yourself. Your Maine Coon will relate to these techniques and soon develop and exhibit its feelings of love for you in return.
13 Ways To Make Your Maine Coon Love You
The ideal way to get your Maine Coon to love you is to start thinking and acting more like a cat yourself. Here are my top 10 tips for achieving this:
1. Early socialization is key
One activity has more bearing on how much a Maine Coon develops a love of people than any other and that’s early socialization.
It’s really important for this to begin when a Maine Coon kitten is as young as possible, from 2 weeks of age is ideal and by 9 weeks is the latest.
Starting with a few minutes a day of handling by humans, and gradually increasing this time, ensures that Maine Coon kittens learn to trust and love people and continue to do so as adult cats.
If you happen to adopt a Maine Coon kitten that hasn’t been socialized, fear not. Cat behavior expert Tabitha Kucera promotes a gentler way of winning the trust of unsocialized kittens.
2. Avoid eye contact and let your Maine Coon come to you
When you approach a Maine Coon to pet it, you might find it instinctively backs away or scurries past you, avoiding contact. This might be because it’s not sure if it can trust you or is just not in the mood to be fussed over.
If you want your Maine Coon to show you its love, the best thing to do is avoid eye contact and touching, and let it decide to come to you when it wants to. In fact, the more you focus on something else, the more likely your cat is to approach you.
According to the dodo, studies have shown, “cats actually enjoy being around humans who don’t identify as cat people.”
Their article explains, “when cats are around people who simply tolerate them, they’re actually given the control and independence they love.
Meanwhile, some cat lovers can be too clingy with their cats, holding them in areas they don’t like, simply because they can’t help showing their love for their feline friends.”
Therefore, not only does letting your Maine Coon initiate interaction work better, it often results in them staying with you for longer.
Tip: try working on your laptop and see how quickly your Maine Coon appears and tries to lie on the keyboard.
3. Take time to work out where your cat likes to be petted
Like all cats, Maine Coons are sensitive to touch and prefer being petted in some places more than others. They are more likely to love a stroke or a scritch between their ears, along their cheeks or under their chins.
If you watch cats engaging in social behavior, these areas tend to be where they groom each other.
According to Mental Floss, science-backed tips for getting a cat to like you include “petting on the forehead area and the cheeks.”
These are areas I’ve always found my Maine Coons to love being petted. They always react as if they love this interaction by purring, kneading, and pushing into my hand.
The cats preferred their petting to come in the form of strokes along the cheeks and chin or between the eyes and ears.
Of course, every Maine Coon is unique and only time will tell where your cat loves to be petted.
4. Never do anything that causes a negative reaction
If you want to earn your Maine Coon’s love, avoid doing anything that upsets it.
There are plenty of signs that a cat doesn’t like your actions, ranging from hissing to biting, flattening its ears a wildly wagging its tail. These are all signs that your advances are unwelcome.
Don’t ever think that by persisting in doing whatever you were doing you’ll make your cat get used to and accept it – you’ll simply stop it from trusting you and will never earn its love.
5. Greet your Maine Coon as another cat would
If you’ve ever watched Maine cats greeting each other, you may have noticed they gently touch noses.
You can attempt to lie on the floor and go nose to nose with your Maine Coon if you like but alternatively, you can slowly offer a finger for it to sniff.
Most Maine Coons will react to this gesture by sniffing, rubbing and even licking your finger – a definite sign of feline love.
6. Play with it every day
The more you play with a Maine Coon, the more attached to you it will become. Many people play with kittens but slacken off from this activity as they mature.
If your Maine Coon acts bored, ignores you, or seems to sleep too much, the chances are it’s bored from the lack of social interaction. The ideal way to prevent this is through several play sessions a day, no matter how old your cat is.
So if you want to keep up a loving relationship with your Maine Coon, pick up a wand and awaken its predatory behavior.
This will strengthen the loving bond between the two of you and keep your cat mentally and physically healthy.
Remember, several shorter play sessions are better than one long one – think about how cats hunt in short sharp bursts.
In a recent article on PetMD, when asked how much play is ideal Dr. Carol Osborne, DVM was quoted as saying, “Four 10-minute sessions a day is a reasonable guidepost,” and, “Keep in mind, however, that every cat is different and has their own unique exercise requirements.”
7. Spend as much time as possible with it
The more time you spend with your Maine Coon, the more it will grow used to having you around and develop a love of you.
If your Maine Coon is an indoor cat, it will probably spend more time interacting with you than one that spends a lot of time amusing itself outside.
If you work from home, your Maine Coon is likely to develop a stronger bond with you than if you go out to work all day.
8. Groom to bond
With cats, grooming each other is a social activity. You’ve probably noticed how often cats in the same household lick each other
If you gently groom a Maine Coon from a young age, it will help the two of you to bond. In return, your Maine Coon may even show its love for you by grooming you.
9. Blink and yawn
You may have noticed that when cats have a face-off, they stare intently, without averting their gaze until one cat backs down and looks away. This is a sign of not being a threat.
If you blink slowly at your Maine Coon and then look away, you are showing that it can trust you and that you aren’t a threat. But avoid staring at all costs!
Couple the slow blink with a yawn. Make it a very obvious, exaggerated yawn without making a loud noise. This will really relax your cat even more.
10. Be the one who feeds it
When you feed your Maine Coon, it associates the good feeding of being fed with you. And your cat will love you even more if you stick to the same meal times every day. They thrive on routine.
You may notice that when you provide your Maine Coon with its first meal of the day it is super affectionate, meows, and rubs against you.
11. Avoid wearing strong scent
Maine Coons, like all cats, have a sensitive sense of smell. If you wear an over-powering perfume or cologne, the chances are you’ll repell your feline friend.
So as much as possible, avoid wearing a scent when you’re trying to bond with a Maine Coom or risk it keeping it’s distance.
Your Maine Coon will learn to know and love your natural scent if you don’t mask it with perfume all the time.
12. Watch their behavior and learn from it
Take note of your Maine Coon’s reaction to everything you do with it. A cat’s body language is subtle but relays many messages.
Signs of contentment include slow blinking and yawning whereas ear going back and a twitch of the tail signal irritation.
Adjusting your actions according to your Maine Coon’s mood will go a long way toward earning its trust and love.
13. Give it time
It can be incredibly frustrating when you have nothing but love to offer to your Maine Coon but it just don’t seem to reciprocate.
Although it varies from cat to cat, it most likely won’t be an overnight fixa Maine Coon probably won’t fall in love with you over night.
What I can say is that if you follow all of the above addvice, over time, you will end up with a Maine Coon that loves you.
Do Maine Coon cats love their owners?
Maine Coons love the company of humans and are widly believed to develop cat feelings of love for their owners. By following the 13 tips in this article you will have a very strong chance of making your Maine Coon love you, I can virtually guarantee it!