::Ragdoll::

HISTORY

The breed ragdoll was created in the 60s in California, USA, by a woman called Ann Baker.
The mother to the fírst ragdoll was called Josephine, and she was a white, semi-longhaired cat of angoran type. Ann Baker lived next to Joseephine's owner, and she used to borrow one of Josephine's sons, Blackie, to breed with her own cats. Blackie was a black cat of persian type, whose father was a black cat from the eastern.
One day when Ann was about to get Blackie she saw his brother, Daddy Warbucks.
Daddy Warbucks looked just like a birman, except he had a white blaze, white tip of the tail och high white socks on his feet.

Ann Baker liked Daddy Warbucks so much, she decided she would breed cats who looked just like him.
She stared a breeding-program, in which a daughter between Josephine and Blackie, Buckweath, and one daughter between Josephine and Daddy Warbucks, Fugianna, was included.
These two females founded two lines in ragdollbreeding: "light side" (based on Fugianna) and "dark side" (based on Buckwheat).
The first cats that were registrated as ragdolls were two siblings after Daddy Warbucks and Buckwheat. They were called Kyoto and Tiki.

Ann Baker started to draw up detailed directions for how the the breeding of ragdoll was to be done, and she handed out licenses to breeders. 1975 Ann Baker took patent on the ragdoll breed.
Today the breed is accepted in all cat assosiations except CFA (Cat Fanziiers Assosiation)
The first ragdolls came to sweden 1991.

APPEARANCE

The ragdoll ia a large breed, it should be massive and heavy. The bones should be medium to heavy and the body muscular. The males weighs about 5-9 kg and the females about 3,5-5 kg. The breed developes slow and isn't fully grown until 3 or 4 years old.
The coat is semilong and thick with minimum undercoat, and flows with the body. The coat resembles rabbit-fur: absolutely soft and silky.
The head should be medium in size and broad, the eyes big and always blue and the ears should be wide set, with a rounded tip and tilted forward.
The legs are medium long with large, oval and feather-tufted paws. The hindlegs are slighly longer than the forelegs, which makes the dorsal line looks as if it is slanting forward. 
The tail should be long with a full plume.

The ragdoll is a pointed breed, and it can also have white markings. The colors that are accepted are seal, blue, chocolate, lilac (frost), red(flame), cream, seal-, blue-, chocolate- and lilac tortoiseshell, and all these with lynxpattern. Seal and blue are most common.
There are also three different patterns;

Colorpoint - No white, only pointed

Mitted - White gloves on frontpaws, hindpaws white up to the heel. A white stripe should start at the chest and run backwards between the frontlegs to under the tail. A small white blaze is accepted. 

Bicolor - The face should have a blaze shaped like an upsidedown "V". The "V" should be symmetrical and should not extend the eyes. The belly should be white without dark spots, the legs preferrebly white. White markings on the back is accepted, but not on ears or tail. 

PERSONALITY

The personality is the ragdoll breed's characteristic. It got its name from the tendency it has to fully relax and become a "rag" when you pick it up.
The ragdoll is very social, it wants to be with you everywere, and it loves humans. It also enjoyes cat company, a ragdoll does not want to live alone, especially if you are working all day long.

The ragdoll is overall a very easy-going and laid-back cat. It's usually not very fond of climbing or jumping high, it rather stayes on the floor or in the couch, were it can be in the middle of things. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't like playing, on the contrary, this is something it loves to do with you. The good thing about ragdolls though, is that it almost always plays in a very "house-friendly" way! :-)