Ragdoll Breed
From Jyrak's website (Jydsk Racekatte Klub) about the ragdoll breed:
Ragdolls are large, massive cats with blue eyes. The coat is medium long, silky soft and does not require much fur care. They are very patient and loving and quickly settle into new surroundings, where they thrive with both children and other animals.
Ragdolls have a very quiet and pleasant voice that they use diligently. They need a lot of love and follow their people everywhere with great devotion. The Ragdoll can, as the name implies, relax so that they lie almost like a rag doll.
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Currently, the Ragdoll is approved in 3 patterns and many colors.
Colourpoint: masked like the Siamese - face, ears, tail and legs darker than the rest of the body.
Mitted: like the colourpoint, but the chin, forepaws and hind legs must be white and there must be a more or less wide white line from the chin over the belly to the tail root, moreover, many of them have a white blaze in the forehead.
Bi-color: just like mitted, but there should be an inverted white V on the face, the entire underside should be white and all four legs should preferably be completely white.
In addition to brown, blue, chocolate and purple, the Ragdoll is available in red, cream, tortie and lynx (striped).
From the Ragdoll Club's website
The Ragdoll cat has a short history compared to other cat breeds. The story goes back to the 60s. The Ragdoll breed has been through a lot, but despite this, the breed has become one of the most popular cat breeds.
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Origin of the breed
Ann Baker was a breeder in Riverside, California. In her cattery, she originally bred Balinese and Persians. From about 1963, Ann Baker worked on developing a new cat breed. To develop the new breed, she borrowed from her neighbors the Pennels Family, a male cat Beauty resembling a Holy Burma who was mated to her white angora cat Josephine. Out of this mating came a kitten named Daddy Warbucks, born in 1964. He is listed as a seal mitted ragdoll (RAG n 04).
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Ann Baker later confirmed that Daddy Warbucks' father Beauty was of unknown origin and not pedigree. This makes it difficult to go further into the history of the breed before that time. Josephine was later mated by Daddy Warbucks, and from this mating Fugianna was born. Fugianna was the first bicolor ragdoll. Ann Baker then mated Josephine with Pennel's domestic cat Blackie and got Buckwheat.
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Josephine, Daddy Warbucks, Fugianna and Buckwheat were not ragdolls at the time, but they formed the basis of the new ragdoll race. No more is heard of Josephine hereafter, but her descendants played the crucial role in the development of the ragdoll breed.
Because the kittens were relaxed in her arms, they reminded Ann Baker of the very popular American rag dolls Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. That's why she named the new breed Ragdoll. She chose the name Raggedy Ann for her cattery. In 1966, Daddy Warbucks, Fugianna, Kyoto and Tiki (kittens from Daddy Warbucks and Buckwheat) were registered as the first ragdolls.
From 1964 to 1969, Ann Baker did not sell ragdolls. She kept them all in her own breeding.