The History of the Ragdoll Cat
The Ragdoll cat breed was created by a colorful woman named Ann Baker is Riverside, California in the 1960's. The original breeding stock were a Persian/Angora-like white cat and a sealpoint Birman or birman-like cat. Ann had been borrowing cats from her neighbors the Pennels to use in her black Persian breeding program. One of the cats was Blackie, a son of the white Persian/Angora cat named "Josephine". The Pennels had a large colony of most likely feral cats.
At some point, Josephine was hit by a car. For the first time Josephine allowed Mrs. Pennel to touch her. Mrs. Pennel was able to take Josephine to the vet for treatment. After recovering Josephine moved back into the colony and soon was pregnant with a litter of kittens. Josephine had lost her feral behavior and had become laid-back and affectionate. Ann Baker was very impressed with a kitten from this litter, a mitted sealpoint brother of Blackie. She believed that the accident had caused Josephine to produce cats with laid-back sweet dispositions. She took this cat for her breeding program and named him "Daddy Warbucks". At some point Ann also obtained a daughter of Josephine: a black heavy-coated female named Buckwheat. Buckwheat was similar to a Burmese but not siamese in character. She also obtained Fugianna a mismarked bicolor. Fugianna and Buckwheat were bred to Daddy Warbucks and formed the foundation of the Ragdoll breed.
Why the breed has a wonderful disposition might just be explained by the fact that the foundation cats were born with these qualities. It is also possible that breeders over the years have worked to keep these qualities in the breed.
Ann Baker accomplished having the breed recognized in 1965 in the NCFA, a cat registry association that is no longer in existence. A new breeder working under Ann did much work to get the breed excepted in other organizations. Ragdolls are now accepted for competition in all cat associations.
