agdolls are medium to large boned, fairly long cats and possess the Siamese colorpoint gene and the white spotting gene. The have broad modified wedge shaped head - best described as a large piece of pie, with the corners rounded. Their ears are wide set and slightly tilted forward and the eyes are very blue, but not round in shape.

he Ragdoll comes in seal point, chocolate point, blue point and lilac point although red points, cream points and tabby points are now being bred. The "colorpoints" are exactly that. The "mitted" versions have the color points but have white mittens, white boots and a white blaze on the nose. The "bicolored" has additional white on the stomach, chest and ruff. Genetics means that there are three other patterns: "High Mitted" where the mitts extend up legs; "Mid-High White" which is a Bi-color with additional white in the "saddle" area; and "High White" which is a Bi-color with even greater degree of white, the "saddle" may be absent.

he colorpoint and white spotting genes interact to produce the different patterns. The three recognized patterns are colorpoint, mitted and bicolor. All Ragdolls are colorpointed and some also have white. Due to the way genes interact, some cats Ragdolls which look identical actually have different genotypes (different genetic make-up). For example, High Mitted, Mid High White and "true" Bicolor can all appear identical, though the exact amount of white is variable (almost infinitely so!) and some High Mitteds display more white than a show quality Bicolor while some Mid High Whites may have so much white on them that they appear to be High Whites! At times like this, only a knowledge of what genes the cat has inherited allows breeders to know what color their cat really is!

igh White is also known as Van pattern or Harlequin in some associations and is a recognized color in CFA (America).

agdolls also produce pet quality variants which are not shown (except as household pets), but which have the same excellent temperament. The variants include white toes on colorpoint Ragdolls, dark toes on mitted Ragdolls, odd white marks appearing in dark areas and dark marks appearing in light areas! The white spotting is hard to get perfectly right!

he Ragdoll originated in California in the early 1960s and is surrounded by myth thanks to their somewhat eccentric breeder, Ann Baker. Ann Baker bred Persian cats. Josephine was a white Persian-Angora cat belonging to Baker's neighbor; she was a semi-feral who produced kittens as wild as herself. After Josephine was hit by a car she had to stay indoors while recovering and she became somewhat tamer.

hile Josephine's earlier litters had been half wild like their mother, the litters born after the road accident were very relaxed, docile and social. The exact reason why is not known and later became the subject of wild claims. Since kittens inherit much of their personality from their sire, the most likely explanation is that she was breeding with different males, ones carrying genes for more sociable offspring. Judging by the kittens' appearance, Josephine's suitors were most likely Birman and Burmese. In addition, Josephine was less wild and perhaps did not train her kittens to be quite so fearful of humans.

aker decided to create a new breed, one which retained the very sociable, relaxed traits, non-matting fur, large size and the property of going limp when handled. She acquired a black Burmese-looking female called Buckwheat and a bicolor female called Fugianna. Fugianna's sire was another of Josephine's kittens, a seal-point Birman-type cat called Daddy Warbucks. There were to be no more founding cats since Josephine and her next litter were destroyed by their owner. Based on the appearance of the two founding females, Baker split their progeny into two groups: Fugianna's kittens were termed "the Light Side"; Buckwheat's kittens were termed "the Dark Side".

nn Baker formulated a strict breeding policy to preserve the purity of the Ragdoll and charged other breeders (franchisees) a royalty fee for every kitten they sold. She also made wild claims about the cats: their docility was due to changes in Josephine after she was hit by a car (a long-discredited Lamarckian theory), that while Josephine was being treated for injuries she was infused experimentally with skunk and/or raccoon and/or human genes (even if done, these genes would not have entered the egg cells in the ovaries), that Ragdolls were immune to pain (they have normal pain thresholds but are remarkably tolerant cats) and even that they are a link between us and space aliens! A more plausible suggestion was that Josephine had a mutation in her ovaries and this mutation was present in the egg cells (a germ-line mutation) and was passed on to her offspring.

er claims and methods alienated other breeders, some of whom broke away to develop the Ragdoll into a registrable breed using sound breeding practices. Denny Dayton achieved recognition for the Ragdoll in the USA in 1967 in the USA. In 1971 Baker created the International Ragdoll Cat Association (IRCA) and claimed that non-IRCA cats to be fakes, frauds, look-alike, half-bred, not authentic etc while promoting her cats as the only legitimate Ragdolls. In 1975 Baker patented the Ragdoll name; she died in 1997 but her patent remains valid until 2005 and allows only IRCA breeders to use the name "Ragdoll". Earlier breakaway breeders felt that the restriction did not apply to them because they had purchased and bred their cats prior to the time of the patent. In 1981, Ragdolls were exported overseas for the first time.