Dexter and DeeDee

Unless you find one in rescue, chances are by the time you come to buy a pedigree Ragdoll, you’ll have owned a cat or two. You’ve probably even had a long haired one. This will place you in the comfortable seat of experience: you know about feeding and vaccination schedules and socialising and play and grooming and poop scooping.

Let me tell you, that when it comes to fluff, like Jon Snow, YOU KNOW NOTHING.

I grew up with cats. I had this one cat, Cleo, who had so much dense, thick fur that if you pressed your hand into it, it would leave a handprint until she groomed it out. I’ve had longhairs, short hairs, you name it. But I have never encountered the sheer amount of shed fluff than that a single rag doll can produce on a daily basis. And I have two.

Reading articles about these guys, I find myself laughing at the lies they spread. ‘Reduced shedding and matting’ my arse. Their coats are dense and fluffy, with extra fluff at the rear end like pantaloons. DeeDee has so much hair across her shoulders and under her chin that when she ‘loaf’ sits, her face sinks into it. And it’s so long that if she grooms it, the stuff thats still attached often gets stuck in her teeth. In winter, Dexter’s fur is about 4 inches long. The fur is extremely smooth and silky. DeeDee feels like a cloud, and Dexter is sleek and soft. They don’t mat up a lot, but they shed a huge amount, regardless of season, but worse when they are shedding. 

I don’t brush my two very much for two reasons. One, I put the brush down and don’t find it for three months. Two, Dexter hates the brush, and DeeDee isn’t convinced. I finger comb them every day instead, which involves fishing out the tangles and would-be mats from Dexter’s tummy (particularly his armpits) and DeeDee’s ‘mane’ and bib. Ignoring the swathes of fur they spread across my clothes, furniture, and that flicks off them in curls and tufts as they bound around or groom one another, I can pull golf to tennis ball sized clumps off each of them EVERY DAMN DAY.

If you want a ragdoll, great. They’re awesome. But give up being house proud, invest in a good hoover for your type of flooring, get multiple lint rollers, and perhaps even keep a spare set of laundered-and-defluffed cushion covers etc for your soft furnishings to change intermittently. If you have allergies, like me, prepare to lose any of that hard earned and built up tolerance. There’s going to be too much fur and dander for your sinuses to handle.

On a welfare note, be prepared to put in the time and care every day checking them over, particularly the areas you know tangle. And if you can afford a Fulminator, get it.