Orchid wrote:

On 18 Feb 2004 10:56:31 -0800, (den) wrote:

Our Maine Coon boy died very suddenly in January just under 5 years
old the cause was found to be cardiomyopathy We where not aware of any
problems with the breed until it was too late. Thanks to lots of info
on the internet.

We are not really prepared to take the chance with another Maine Coon
it would be to heart breaking if it happened again
although we are not ready for another cat we have talked about
Norwegians and Siberians is anybody aware of any problems with these
breeds ?

If you are still interested in Maine Coons, talk to breeders
about whether or not they do echocardiograms with color doppler.
Responsible Maine Coon breeders do this yearly on breeding cats, and
will be glad to talk about it with you and show you the test results.
They also test for feline hip dysplasia and luxating patellas.

As I noted in another thread, breeders of Maine Coon cats have a database in
which they enter screening info for individual cats regarding test results for
HCM and hip dysplasia. I've also seen one for Norwegian Forest Cats. Of course,
any cat can develop HCM and even if you choose a kitten which has no hcm in its
pedigree that's not a guarantee it will never have HCM, but you can find out
whether there is a genetic propensity. I don't know about Siberians but yes,
occasionally the inherited kind of HCM shows up in Norwegian Forest Cats. It
does not seem to be so common as with Maine Coons, but that may be because
Maine Coons have been the breed researchers have studied most to track
inheritable HCM.