Ann Baker, a breeder in Riverside, California, started working in 1963 with a white female cat, called Josephine, belonging to her neighbour, to create the Ragdoll breed. Josephine has been described as a Persian type cat, although experts believe it was an Angora cat. It was even mentioned that she was a feral cat. Josephine was involved in a car accident.. She broke her pelvis, was hospitalised at a university clinic and recovered without apparent injury. After the recovery from the accident, she was used by Ann Baker in a breeding program.

The males Ann Baker mated Josephine with were a Burmese and a mitted male. According to the time frame of the creation of the Ragdoll there were no Sacred Birmans present in the USA when Josephine was mated with a mitted male. Ann Baker confirms this in a newsletter where she writes that the Sacred Birman breed was not used to create the Ragdoll.

One common thread in all of the stories of the creation of the Ragdoll is the fact that Ann Baker recognized wonderful qualities in the offspring of Josephine. She believed that the new temperament of the kittens was due to the road accident their mother suffered from. This caused many "authorities" to argue on the fact how an accident could have affected the resulting offspring at a genetic level. Resulting in the myth that during her stay in the clinic Josephine was used in a genetic experiment. At that time however there was no knowledge and understanding of genetics to be able to tamper with the genetics of a cat.

Although Josephine most likely suffered from an accident, this could not have had any effect on the genetic floppy character of her offspring. It is more likely that she bred with cats with a very gentle nature.The kittens possessed besides their beautiful laid back, floppy nature also a huge size, a non-matting fur and were very tolerant when being picked up the wrong way.

In 1969 Laura and Denny Dayton got interested in the Ragdoll breed and bought their first breeding pair. They had never signed any agreements with Ann Baker , who attempted to implement a franchise agreement demanding more money. Baker issued the first franchises in 1970 and updated them in 1975. This was brought to court and Baker was subjected to a restraint order to prevent further bad propaganda against the Daytons.

The Daytons worked very hard to get the breed recognized by TICA (The International Cat Assosiation) Denny began charting pedigrees of all the Ragdolls. Today this has grown into an International Chart that is up-dated annualy within the Ragdoll Fanciers Club International (RFCI).

In 1971 Ann Baker formed her own organisation IRCA (The International Ragdoll Cat Assosiation) with very strict terms and breeding policies. Due to the many strange, contradicting and hard to believe statements Baker made, several breeders broke off from her and continued breeding Ragdolls.Very few breeders are still working under the IRCA and cats registered with the IRCA are only recognized to participate in IRCA shows. In 1994 a group split off from the IRCA and thought of a new name for their Ragdolls : Ragamuffin.

The Ragdolls with who breeders achieved recognition in the big catclubs for gaining titels where all pointed Ragdolls with a blue eyecolour. However the IRCA registered catteries continued to work with besides the pointed also with Ragdolls in a rainbow of colours (the mink Ragdolls and solid or self coloured Ragdolls).

Ann Baker devided her Ragdolls into a "dark side" and a "light side". Buckwheat, one of the founding Ragdolls belonged to the dark side. Ann Baker described her as omschreef haar als een langharige bruin-zwarte kat met gele oogkleur (= mogelijk een sepia). Buckwheat's vader omschreef ze als een Burmees, waardoor waarschijnlijk in de traditionele lijnen van de Ragdolls het mink gen erin gebracht werd. Most breeders combined the darker Ragdolls with the lighter ones to achieve more contrast between the points and body colour. Kittens with a different eyecolour (aqua, light grey) where mostly sold as pets.

Some times the darker Ragdolls where combined with each other and this gave kittens with an impossible colour and eyecolour for pointed Ragdolls, which points in the direction that possible a lot of pointed registered Ragdolls are mink instead of point.

Ragdoll breeders where surprised to have from time to time out of pointed x pointed combinations kittens who have a birth already a brownpaperbag colour instead of white. Often these kittens will have when grown up a lighter yellow to dark green outer edge or even a blue/green (aqua) eyecolour. Sometimes the eyecolour is even greyish to very dark blue. If you like to compare the eyecolours, a tip we give is to visit the websites of the Tonkinese breeders and have a good look at the eyecolours of their minks.

Als men bij de geboorte zo'n donkere kittens tegen komt wiens kleur mink blijkt en wiens oogkleur later aqua (of groen, grijzig of blauw) blijkt, dan gaat men tegenwoordig op zoek vanwaar deze oogkleur komt. Navraag leert dan dikwijls dat er ook bij andere fokkers, die met dezelfde lijnen werken, kittens geboren zijn die niet wit waren bij de geboorte. Omdat die mink kittens uit pointed x pointed geregistreerde ouders komen zal het waarschijnlijk nog enkele generaties duren eer men na test-combinaties deze mink kittens correct kan laten registeren als mink Ragdolls op de stambomen bij de kattenverenigingen. Uit mink x mink combinaties mag men zowel sepia (heel donker solid gekleurd met gele oogkleur), mink als pointed kittens verwachten.

There are pedigrees where out of 2 pointed Ragdoll parents, a black Ragdoll was born. Genetically that's not possible. An explanation for that is that the black Ragdoll is in fact a sepia Ragdoll and that both parents are mink. An nice link about pointed, mink and solid genetics can be found on the Catz Inc. website. An interesting link to find out more about mink genetics, is the following website with tonkinese genetic information.

Besides the pointed and mink Ragdolls, also solid Ragdolls have been registered in the past by IRCA breeders as Ragdolls. Many of the pointed Ragdolls who have red in their pedigrees are descendants of a few of these solid Ragdoll lines. The solid Ragdolls have gained a lot of popularity during the past years in Europe. Their popularity has nothing to do with monetary gain, because they usually are being sold at the same prize as their pointed littermates. They have adversaries among both the Ragdoll and Ragamuffin breeders. The solid Ragdoll breeders are working hard to get the solids, minks and sepia's recognized during one of the future years for championshipstatus. At this moment they are in most countries not yet recognized to gain titels at shows. They all have however a TICA SBT registration and full Ragdoll pedigree.

More English information about the solid (non pointed) Ragdolls can be found on the following website : The Solid Ragdoll
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