The Ragdoll

a lilac colourpoint



a lilac solid

Beneath there is some information about the breed Ragdoll. Notice that every Ragdoll has an own personality.

Character
The Ragdoll has a sweet character. The cat easily adjusts to new surrounding. The Ragdoll also loves other pets and children. They are extremely curious and are gladly to help with every day jobs. They love the company of people and love to cuddle. They forgive and forget very easily. The Ragdoll is the friend of everybody. Not a cat that you can leave outside. They will walk home with anybody!! The Ragdoll doesn’t mind staying inside unless the owner gives a lot of hugs!

Care
The Ragdolls are despite their half-long coat easy to keep up. Is means brush once a week. We often get the question if Ragdoll do shed.. YES they do. A lot can be done by given your Ragdoll high quality food. But they keep on shedding. Especialy when taking their winter of summer coat off. Of course the Ragdoll needs the care and love that any cat needs


The difference between a lilac tabby mink (below left, brother) and a lilac tabby point (below right, sister). Note the richness in the overall colour and the aqua eyecolour of the mink.


























Looks
The things you notice first are the blue eyes, the half-long and soft coat en the size of the cat.
The Ragdoll can have several patterns;
- Bicolor (an upside-down v in the face)
- colourpoint (dark feet, tail and head with a lighter body) and
- mitted (white feet further like a point)

The patterns are possible in the following colours;
- seal (dark brown, almost black)
- blue (grey)
- chocolat (warm brown)
- lilac (soft grey)
- cream
- red

For more info about these last 4 colour, see below.

With al these variations there can be a lynx/tabby pattern. You see by the ear white edges and in the colours are stripes.
You also see tortie. These are spots in the combination red colour/regular colour, for example red/seal and cream/blue. These spots can occur in any pattern.There is also torbie. These are torties with a lynx/tabby pattern added.
The last one is silver/smoke. Here the the hair is only coloured at the end.

A beautiful difference between a ceam solid (left) and a cream point (right)

Variation
There are more ragdolls, besides the more common pointed ragdoll. You do have the minks (cs-cb), these are born with there colour already show (the points are born totally white), But they are getting darker after time. The eye colour can vary from blue to aqua. You also have the rare sepia ragdoll (cb-cb). They are born with already having there colour. The eye colour can vary from yellow, green to aqua. The last one is the solid, or the non-pointed ragdoll. These ragdoll don’t have points, are born coloured and the eye colour can vary from yellow, green to aqua. The solid also can have a blue eye colour, but this is rare. The solid can carry the point or the sepia gene. The pointed gene and the sepia gene are partial dominant. This means you can always see on the outside if the cat carries the genes (except of course with a solid, cause that gene is dominant) So: cs-cs (called pointed) has the lightest bodycolour. cb-cs (called mink) has a slightly darker bodycolour. cb-cb (called sepia) has the darkest bodycolour. The difference between body and point colour is almost gone with the sepia. So you can ALWAYS see if the ragdoll has the sepia gene (except for the solid. A pointed ragdoll CAN'T carry the sepia gene, cause otherwise you can see it on your ragdoll cause then it will be a mink ragdoll.


All these ragdolls where there from the beginning, the founder of the ragdoll, Ann Baker, used all of them. But, to make a long story short, only the blue eyed ones where promoted. Minks, sepias and solids are just as much ragdoll as the pointed, they do have the same character, only with another skin. I you want to know more about these kinds of ragdolls, plaese look at this site; Meer informatie over solid ragdolls


More info about lilac, chocolate and other colours.
As most of you know, Ann Baker did take a lot of secrets of the beginning of the Ragdoll with her when she died. But lucky for us, there are more and more people talking about Ann Baker and the things she said to them. I was first not planning to put this info out here, but some things have made me change my mind ;)

As many of you know, the red in Ragdolls was not orginally there. Most of the time persians were used to get this colour. This is also the way we got the tabby pattern. It's often hard to find bak in the pedigree of your cat if there are any other breeds used in the past. But if you have red and/or tabby in your lines, you're sure there's another breed in there somewhere.

Recently wealso have more information about the 'orginal' lilac and chocolates. What do we mean:
We have 2 'big' lines of chocalte and lilac that are used often here.. These are the American Lonerock lines. Here the Sacred Birman was used to get the chocolate and lilac colours, but sometimes also a Persian. You also have got the Ragstar/Dancingmist lines from Australia. Here the Balinese is used for the chocolate and lilac.

Than there are lines where we can't find another breed, but do carry the chocolate gene (DNA proved). We've thought that these gene was in there from the beginning, but by misunderstanding the genetics, was breed out of the Ragdoll. These Ragdolls are now called the 'orginal Chocolate and lilac Ragdolls'. But recently a letter from Ann Baker herself showed up, were she stated she used the Balinese to get the chocolate and lilac colours. She changed the pedigree of those cats, so we couldn't find out (we allready knew Ann was creative with her pedigrees.) It now turns out we have 2 Tumper Jr's. 1 Orginal and one from a Ragdoll Balinese crossing.br>
So how orginal are the orginal Ragdolls?
If you ask me?: If it's done in a good was, it's wise new lines are used. the Ragdoll is based on 1 female and 2 males. (At least that's what Ann Baker told) Common sence tells you you are sure having problems in the future if you don't use new lines, because of the high rate of inbreeding. Of course the bad way is to use unhealthy cats. That's why it have to be done in a good way. Also we think it's not wise to combine these new lines over and over again (cause the same thing applys)
At the moment they are using this to breed Ragdolls with the new colours Fawn and Cinnamon.

To make things really clear: We are NOT using other breeds. And our Ragdolls ALL are SBT by TICA. And ALL have a pedigree. But because we do have torties, lilacs and chocolates, we do not have 'orginal lines'.. As far as they do excist at all ;)