Flatdwellers’ perfect cat

Press, 30 August 1988, Page 20

Flatdwellers’ perfect cat

By

PHIL REEVES,

of the “Independent”

AT LAST, a living soft toy for flatdwellers: a cat that scorns violence, likes living in a flat, rarely goes out, grovels to its owners, and even has liberal tendencies.

A cat, too, that will caress any mangled ego and soothe shredded nerves by purring incessantly. One, timed recently, kept it up for 45 minutes. And when you pick it up it will not wriggle or scratch. Instead it flops onto its back, allowing you to cradle it.

Ragdoll cats, originally bred in American, are humanity’s revenge for the aloof haughtiness, the exasperating independence, of the ordinary street cat. Hundreds are being bought in Britain. Sue Ward-Smith, from Ashburnham, Sussex, one of. the

handful of Ragdoll breeders in Britain, said: “They are exceptionally placid. When you pick them up they will totally relax in your arms and become completely limp. They are very happy living in a flat. They also enjoy walking on lead and going for rides in a car.”

They also show certain liberated characteristics: the Ragdoll male is renowned for'mothering its young, and generally being painstakingly helpful at birth.

The breed, which sells for SNZ6OO or more, has a rather unlikely official biography. It originated in California when a pregnant White Persian called Josephine was struck by a car. Her subsequent litter were all unusually large and floppy, as if drugged, and had strikingly bright blue eyes. The Ragdoll

had arrived. Its strange origins prompted claims that the breed was somehow deformed and could not fully feel pain. According to the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy, the main governing body of the cat world, these allegations have now been medically disproved.

Mrs Ward-Smith has testimonials from happy Ragdoll owners. These extracts produce a picture of a cat that is insufferably nice: “The almost vacant expression that Bonnie wears most of the time is however only the outward sign of that enormous inner claim she possesses ...” Another worte: “Unlike other cats he hardly moves ... He also spends a lot of time watching the goldfish and they seem to be good friends ...”