Ragdoll Cat: The Breed Everyone Gets Wrong

There's a cat breed that gets more misinformation spread about it than any other. People hear "Ragdoll" and immediately think of a floppy, limp cat that goes slack when you pick it up. I've been breeding Ragdolls for eleven years now. I can tell you that the whole "going limp" thing is maybe the fifth or sixth most interesting trait about this breed.

Most of what you read online about Ragdolls is recycled from the same three or four sources, all of them decades old. Some of it was never accurate to begin with. Ann Baker, who developed the breed back in the 1960s in Riverside, California, made some pretty wild claims about her cats. She said they had human genes. She said they were immune to pain. None of this was true. The TICA and CFA breed standards don't mention anything about limpness or pain tolerance.

I got my first Ragdoll in 2013. Her name was Mochi. She came from a backyard breeder in Oregon, and I paid $400 for her. She had ear mites and a mild respiratory infection. I didn't know any better back then. She lived to be nine years old, developed HCM at seven, and I spent close to $8,000 on her cardiac care over those last two years.

That experience pushed me into breeding. I wanted to understand the genetics, the health testing, the whole picture.

My current stud, a seal bicolor named Humphrey. He's from Bellapalazzo lines out of Italy.

The Actual Breed Standard

A proper Ragdoll is a big cat. Males typically hit 15 to 20 pounds. Females run 10 to 15 pounds. They're slow to mature. Most don't reach full size until three or four years old. I've had people contact me worried that their two-year-old Ragdoll is "too small." They're not small. They're just not finished growing.

The coat is medium-long, rabbit-like in texture. It lacks the dense undercoat you see in Persians or Himalayans. This is actually a major selling point. Ragdoll coats mat less. They require brushing maybe twice a week, compared to daily for a Persian. The trade-off is that they shed more visibly. White and cream hairs show up on everything.

The breed comes in three patterns: colorpoint, mitted, and bicolor. It comes in six colors: seal, blue, chocolate, lilac, red, and cream. That's it. If someone is selling you a "black Ragdoll" or a "silver Ragdoll," they're not selling you a Ragdoll. They're selling you a mixed breed or lying about the papers.

Eye color is always blue. No exceptions.

A litter from 2019. Three seal bicolors and one blue mitted.

Health Testing: The Non-Negotiable Part

The Ragdoll community has a serious problem with HCM. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It's a genetic heart condition that causes the heart walls to thicken. Affected cats can die suddenly, sometimes before they show any symptoms. Sometimes at two years old. Sometimes at eight.

There's a DNA test for one of the HCM mutations in Ragdolls, called the MYBPC3 mutation. The test costs about $40 through UC Davis or Optimal Selection. Every breeding cat should be tested. But here's the thing most people don't tell you: the DNA test only catches one mutation. Cats can be negative for MYBPC3 and still develop HCM from other genetic causes.

I've had two cats in my program echo negative, DNA negative, and still develop HCM at age six and seven. Both were retired from breeding immediately. Both were spayed/neutered and placed in pet homes with full disclosure.

A good breeder does annual echocardiograms on all breeding cats, performed by a board-certified veterinary cardiologist. Not a general practice vet. A cardiologist. This costs $300 to $500 per cat per year. I have six breeding cats. That's $2,400 in heart scans alone, every single year.

When someone asks me why my kittens cost $2,000 when they saw Ragdolls on Craigslist for $500, this is part of the answer.

The Price Situation in 2025

The pet Ragdoll market has changed a lot since I started. Back in 2014, a well-bred pet-quality kitten from a reputable breeder ran $1,200 to $1,500. Today you're looking at $1,800 to $2,500 for the same quality. Breeding rights add another $500 to $1,500 on top of that.

The pandemic made everything worse. Kitten prices spiked to $3,000 or more in 2021. Waitlists stretched to two years. Scammers flooded the market. They stole photos from legitimate breeders, set up fake websites, collected deposits, and disappeared. I personally know four families who lost money this way, between $500 and $1,500 each.

Things have normalized somewhat. Most breeders I know have waitlists of three to six months now. Prices have settled back down to that $2,000 range for pet quality.

The backyard breeder and kitten mill cats are still out there for $500 to $800. No health testing. No genetic screening. No socialization protocol. Parents kept in cages. Kittens shipped at six weeks old when they should stay with their mother until twelve weeks minimum. I've taken in three "rescue" Ragdolls over the years that came from these situations. All three had serious health or behavioral issues.

This is Dumpling. She came to me at eight months old from a hoarding situation. Took two years before she'd let anyone pick her up.

What They're Actually Like to Live With

The temperament reputation is earned. Ragdolls do tend to follow their people from room to room. Mine wait outside the bathroom door. They greet me when I come home. Two of them come when called by name, reliably, every time.

They're not very vocal. I've had Siamese. The difference is night and day. My Ragdolls chirp and trill. They rarely meow. They almost never yowl.

The "floppy" thing does have some truth to it. Ragdolls tend to have relaxed muscle tone. When you pick up my cats, they don't tense up the way most cats do. They sort of melt into your arms. Not all of them. Maybe seven out of ten.

They're indoor cats. Period. The breed has essentially no survival instincts. They don't run from strange dogs. They don't fight back when attacked. I've heard too many stories of Ragdolls let outside who were killed by neighborhood dogs, coyotes, or even raccoons. A woman in my local breed club lost her grand champion to a hawk. In her own backyard. In the middle of the day.

The breed is prone to intestinal issues. A lot of Ragdolls have sensitive stomachs. Food transitions need to happen slowly, over two weeks minimum. Many do best on a single protein source. I've had good results with rabbit-based foods for the cats in my program with digestive sensitivities.

The Breeder Search

Finding a good breeder takes time. I tell people to budget three to six months minimum for the search alone, before you even get on a waitlist. Here's what to look for:

• Health testing documentation. You want to see HCM echos dated within the past year for both parents. You want to see the MYBPC3 DNA results. PKD testing if the lines have any Persian ancestry. These should be provided without you having to ask twice.
• A contract with a health guarantee. The standard in the breed right now is a two-year genetic health guarantee. Some breeders offer three years. Mine is two years, with a replacement kitten or refund at my discretion.
• Kitten socialization protocols. The breeder should be able to tell you specifically what they do to socialize kittens. Exposure to different sounds, surfaces, handling by multiple people. Litter box training on multiple substrate types. Introduction to carriers before the kitten goes home.
• Willingness to take the cat back. Good breeders put it in the contract: if you can't keep the cat at any point in its life, for any reason, it comes back to them. Not to a shelter. Not rehomed on Facebook.
• References from previous buyers. Any breeder who's been operating for more than a couple years should be able to connect you with families who bought kittens from them.

The kitten room setup at my house. The climbing structures get swapped out every few weeks to keep things interesting.