The history of the Ragdoll begins
in California with a lady whose name was Mrs Ann Baker. Her neighbour,
Mrs Pennel, owned a white longhaired cat, wich was called "Josephine".
Ann Baker was very interested in Josephine, and asked Mrs Pennel to
let her mate Josephine with a Birman and keep the kittens for herself.
Josephine had had several litters before, in wich the kittens had
been very big with blue eyes and semi-long haired.In the litter with
the Birman were two males, Daddy Warbucks and Geuber.Theese two were
the first Ragdolls, even though the name "Ragdoll" was not
given to them yet. The two males were what we now call "mitted".
Mrs Baker decided to mate back Daddy Warbucks to Josephine, as
she thought that it was something special with theese two males.
The result was a female called Fugianna and she was a seal bicolour.
If there were any moore kittens in that litter with Fugianna, we
do not know because Fugianna is the only one that is described and
from her we have the line that is given the name "lightside".
Ann Baker contacted some geneticists and together they created
a breeding program to continue developing the race. To prevent more
inbreeding they decided to mix another breed in the program, and
they decided for a brown Burmese. In some stories about the Ragdoll
a black Persian is mentioned, but in the genealogical tree that
every Ragdoll could discover, it is described "Burmese".
Another thing that prooves that is that Ann Baker gave the cats
in that line Asian names such as Kyoto, Tiki, Toy Ling, Woo Wong,
etc, to compare with the Burmese ancestors which had such names.
Anyhow, the Burmese was mated to Daddy Warbucks and the result
was a seal colourpoint female, Buckwhet. She was mated back to her
father and they got Kyoto, a seal mitted male, and Tiki, a seal
colourpoint female. Tiki is first mother in the line called "darkside".
All these cats are registrated in the catteryname "Raggedy
Ann". Ann Baker started to market her cats, and she called
them Ragdolls, but she was very strict with her buyers and forbidd
them to breed Ragdolls unless she gave them a "licence"
to breed, and they must follow her rules and directions. One breeder,
Mr Denny Dayton - Blossom Time Cattery - did not share Mrs Bakers
opinions in what way the Ragdoll should be bred and after a quarrel
in court and in media, he started to breed them in the way he thought
was the right way to go further with the breed.
The Blossom Time Cattery and Denny Dayton has made the Ragdoll
well-known all over the world. Denny Dayton started "Ragdoll
Fanciers Club International" (RFCI) wich has the purpose to
get the Ragdoll approved as a breed in different American cat associations.
He also started to write the big genealogical tree in wich all Ragdoll
could be traced. The work in the RFCI has resulted in that all American
cat association has now approved the Ragdoll. The first association
was NCFA in 1969 and in the spring of 1993 the CFA, wich is the
biggest and most important association.