Ragdoll Traits

 Ragdolls are large, laid-back, semi longhaired cats with captivating blue or aqua-blue eyes. The Ragdoll is traditionally a pointed breed, which means that the body is lighter in color than the points (the face and ears, legs, tail). The Ragdoll cat is carefully bred to produce large affectionate animals in six patterns, three with white (mitted, bi-color, and van), and the traditional colorpoint (no white). In more recent years there has been the addition of two solid colored patterns (mink and "blue-eyed white"). The mink pattern can be with or without white. The blue-eyed white is a solid white cat with blue eyes that, unlike other breeds and other species that are solid white with blue eyes, has full sense of sound and sight.

The ideal Ragdoll is a well balanced cat, with no extreme features. At a healthy weight altered males will usually top the scale at 13-16 pounds; females are proportionately smaller and usually weigh between 10-14 pounds at maturity. Ragdolls are slow-maturing, reaching full coat color at two years, and full size and weight at four.

There are five patterns: bicolor, van, mitted, colorpoint, and mink. Patterns come in seven colors: seal, blue, chocolate, lilac, red, cream, and "blue-eyed white". Points may be solid, lynx, tortie, or torbie (tortie and lynx). If you do the math, you can see that there are quite a large number of different combinations possible! CFA accepts bicolor and van patterns, mitted and colorpoints for showing in the full array of color combinations.

Colorpoint Ragdolls have the classic pointed markings with no white anywhere in their coat. Mitteds have white feet in the front and white boots that go all the way up and around the hock in the back, a white chin and belly stripe. Mitted Ragdolls may have a blaze, star or hourglass shaped patch of white on their forehead and nose. Bicolors have more white than a mitted; all four paws, their underbodies, chest, and an upside-down ‘V’ marking on their faces. They may have a splash or two of white on their backs. Only their tails, ears, and the outer part of their masks show the darker markings. In the Van pattern, only the top of the mask, ears, and tail, and perhaps a few spots on the body, show darker markings. The mink pattern is a full body color pattern with the points being slightly darker than the body. Minks can also have that addition of the mitted and bicolor markings. With the mink pattern the eyes are almost always an aqua-green color.  The "blue-eyed white" is a solid white Ragdoll with the traditional blue eyes.

Below are photo examples of the many colors and patterns of the Ragdoll breed.  As the popularity of the breed continues to grow there is an increasing demand for a wider variety of colors and patterns.  While not all colors/patterns are accepted for showing purposes by some of the cat breed registries (CFA, TICA, etc), there are still strict rules in place for breeding and registering the non-traditional colors and patterns.