Shauna Bilodeau, a 24-year-old gallery assistant, has an energetic pet that plays fetch, greets her at the door when she comes home and plays dead on command, but her beloved fur ball, Dalia, isn’t some adorable mutt. Rather, she’s a cat.
“I kind of wanted a dog, but my apartment’s really small,” laments the Bushwick resident. So, six months ago, she came home from the ASPCA with the next best thing: a Maine coon, a cat breed known for its unique desire to engage in human interaction and its cuddly heft — they weigh anywhere from 18 to 35 pounds.
“She has so much energy, she’s awesome,” enthuses Bilodeau, who is currently teaching her cat to walk on a leash and use the toilet.
She’s one of a number of city residents who, lacking the square footage for a dog, have found a comparable companion in the Maine coon.
Tiffany McKenna, 35, has a story similar to Bilodeau’s. About 15 years ago, McKenna, who works in publicity, wanted a dog but didn’t have the space in her tiny Upper East Side apartment, so she adopted a fluffy, orange and white Maine coon cat she named Senorita Pumpkin. “My aunt and uncle had coons. I knew they were more like dogs,” says McKenna. “Pumpkin thought she was a dog.”
The cat came when McKenna called her, followed her everywhere and even learned to walk on a leash to be part of her wedding in 2010. Pumpkin passed away in January, and McKenna and her husband Rob, who now live Williamsburg, have a new Maine coon kitten, Walter, that they got from a breeder upstate. “He is already showing trademark signs of the Maine coon character, following me everywhere and playing with his toys,” McKenna enthuses.
The couple also have a newborn son, and they talk of his potential relationship with Walter as if he were a puppy, not a kitten. “We’re excited that they’re 13 weeks apart so they [will] grow up together,” says the new mom.
Grace Rovtar, a Long Island coon breeder, says many of her customers are New York dog lovers. “I get a lot of people who live in the city who can’t have a dog because of space and they say ‘I’ve heard the next best thing is a Maine coon because you can train it,’ ” she explains. “They are extraordinary cats, the most intelligent breed.”
Of course, these fluffy felines do have their drawbacks. Most notably, they’re prone to heart troubles. “I do encourage their owners to let me run a blood test that checks to see if [their cats] are carrying a gene that predisposes them to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart disease for which this breed is genetically susceptible,” says Arnold Plotnick, a veterinarian specializing in cats.
Their size can also be an issue. “Be prepared to spend a lot of money on food,” warns Plotnick. “These cats are huge! You’ve got to think big. Big beds, big litter boxes, etc.”
The great breed’s origins are shrouded in mystery. One legend tells of a sailor named Tom Coon whose feline companions mated with a local Maine breed. Another paints a picture of Marie Antoinette fleeing France with her beloved Turkish Angoras who made it to the Maine shores without their owner. But most say “coon” refers to the breed’s enormous, trademark raccoon-like tail.
John and Jess Price, 32 and 29, didn’t know anything about Maine coons when a friend gifted them with a Maine coon kitten nine years ago. “We were in a small apartment at the time we got Bo and didn’t have the bandwidth for a dog,” John says.
The couple now lives in Hoboken and has the space for both Bo and a dog. Two and a half years ago, they adopted a Weimaraner-vizsla mix named Ryan, and he and Bo make quite a pair. “They have become a sort of odd couple,” says John. “They spend most evenings and weekend afternoons taking naps next to each other.”
But while Ryan may be an actual dog, Bo tends to act more like one. “If you call his name he responds, which I can’t always say about Ryan,” quips John.