Are Maine Coons Smart & Intelligent? Here's The Answer [ Updated ]

Maine Coons are one of the most popular cat breeds in the world. They are well-known for their shaggy-long hair, giant size, adorable behavior, and amiable nature towards other animals.

Maine Coons are also remarkably intelligent cats. They can adapt to a particular situation fast and learn new things considerably quicker than most other breeds.

Hence, if you ask us whether Maine Coons are intelligent, we have to say yes. However, you should know that every cat is different, and expecting the same behavior from every cat is not the right thing to do.

In this article, we will explore Maine Coon cats’ smartness and look for several tests that can help you in deciding the smartness of your Maine Coon.

Are Maine Coons Smart?

Yes, Maine Coon cats assuredly show intelligent traits in day to day life. If you give them a cat-puzzle and wait for them to solve, it is more likely that the Maine Coon will be able to.

If not, there are several distinct ways to know how smart your Maine Coon is.

Maine Coons show a high level of mental maturity by asking for their demands through different cat noises. If that is not the sign of incredible smartness, we don’t know what is.

How Smart Are Maine Coons?

Let us first define smartness in terms of an animal. Smartness is the ability to respond to a particular situation quickly and adapt to the situation when they face any difficulty.

In that case, Maine Coon is an intelligent race. They learn their behavior from their mother before adoption, and then from their owners.

Maine Coon cats are mostly available as purebred cats. Certified breeders across the world breed Maine Coon in pure quality, and as a result, they follow the guideline that the CFA or TIFA have specified.

According to the rules, kittens spend at least ten weeks with their mother until the weaning process is complete. In this period, they learn the following things:

They learn what they can eat or can’t eat. It is very vital for the kittens as they discover to eat solid food during that period.
Mother uses a specific technique to make the kittens self-sufficient in toileting. They also learn the behavior of using litter boxes from their mother.
Survival instinct is also a crucial aspect of learning for any Maine Coon. The sheer size of the Maine Coon helps them become a dominating species. But the kittens learn the fight or flight behavior from their mothers.
Early Socialization is also a necessary part of a Maine Coons pleasant character. They learn to maintain their territory, claim their places, and socialize with other cats from their mother.
Maine Coon might be a house cat, but hunting is in their genes. Maine Coons are incredible hunters, and this shows the smartness of this breed.

Maine Coons also learn a lot of new activities from their owners. The following activities give Maine Coons the fame they have in the cat world:

Cats learn to identify objects, humans, or other animals using their smell.
Maine Coons also learn to differentiate one person from another just by their voice. They are incredibly attracted to the voice of their caretakers.
Maine Coons can learn to respond to calls from their owner. This behavior gives them dog-like characteristics.
Cats can also learn the feeding schedule if they stick to a fixed regime.
Maine Coon cats can communicate with their owners using chirps, trills, and meows. It is one of their ways of getting what they want.

How Can We Test A Maine Coon’s Smartness?

There are several tests by which you can test the smartness of a Maine Coon. Maine Coons are an inherently intelligent breed, and you can train them into performing different tricks.

But remember that every cat has a different level of intelligence. If a cat cannot perform any particular task, it does not mean that it is less intelligent than another cat that can do it.

Hence, you can try several tests to judge the intelligence of the Maine Coons. We have curated a shortlist of all the experiments that you can perform:

Shake a bag of treats in front of the cat, and observe its reaction. If the cat comes near to the bag, then it denotes the use of intelligence and memory.
You can play a cup shuffle game with a toy under one of the cups to understand the cat’s intelligence. You can avoid using any food item, as they can guess the cup using their heightened sense of smell.
Give a treat to the cat and keep another treat under a transparent upside-down cup. If the cat can knock the cup and retrieve the gift, that’s a sign of intelligence.
Play with the Maine Coon using a toy, and then hide it inside an object. If the cat looks behind the thing for the toy, then the cat has a basic level of understanding.

Conclusion:

It should be clear by now that Maine Coons can show a basic level of intelligence. You can be comfortable with all the tricks that we have mentioned in the article.

Performing these tests should help you in understanding the intelligence level of the cat. However, these tests are not the only criteria for their smartness.

Learning new behavior and adapting to different circumstances is a sign of intelligence as well. No matter what, you should love your Maine Coon and take good care of it.