As Tracy said, this is a group for people involved with rescuing
homeless, abandoned, or about to be abandoned cats - we don't buy our
cats, we take them in.  Most of us have too many cats, but somehow
manage to find room for the next hardship case that comes our way.

I think it fair to say that most of us think that purebred cats from
breeders are best left to people interested in showing and breeding.
If you really need a purebred, it is better to take in one that
someone has rejected - sent to a shelter or just thrown out along the
roadside - rather than buy one, though you don't have the opportunity
to make sure you are getting from a reputable breeder.

Personally, I think the best pets are adult or nearly adult cats
rather than kittens because you can judge their personalities and
don't have to suffer through the kitten stage.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu)
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somewhere in the body or they will be automatically rejected.

Hi Star,

Personally, I have a couple of reasons why "I" wouldn't buy from a
breeder. The first one is just that I really have feelings about the
cat overpopulation problem
and I don't like to encourage people to produce more cats, especially
just for companionship purposes, when there's so many great cats who
can't find a home.
Secondly, spending as much time volunteering at a shelter as I do (a
no-kill), I know that there are lots of cats who carry a chunk of
genetic material from the breeds and while they don't have papers,
they can and do have the look and temperament of any breed you can
imagine.

You mentioned health, so I do want to add that it isn't necessarily so
that purebreds are guaranteed healthy. There are many problems that
can come with inbreeding small groups of cats (and ragdolls are a
fairly new breed so there aren't that many with papers and they're
closely related) and while people will say they can guarantee health
and temperament, there really are no guarantees.

If your heart is really set on a ragdoll cat, I'd encourage you to
contact Ragdoll Rescue of America
http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/OR104.html and look at opening your
home to a cat that has lost their home. Check it out! They look to
have some pretty beautiful cats up for adoption to me :

It's called ethics.

There are literally millions of cats being killed every year because
there are not enough homes for them. Breeding *more* cats or buying a
cat from someone who does so makes you directly responsible for the
murder of those innocent cats. It's also a crapshoot as to whether a
so-called "purebred" will be healthy. There is so much inbreeding these
days that a mixed breed shelter cat is more likely to be made of
stronger stuff and healthier. Ragdolls are notorious for developing
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and the fact that you want to get one cheap
increases your chances of getting a less than healthy one as the only
one you'll get cheap is from a backyard breeder. My advice is that you
go to a kill shelter, look at all the cats that are there while the
clock is ticking, and really think about what the right thing to do is,
which AFAIC is to save one from being killed rather than give money to
someone who is adding more cats to an already overpopulated world.

Megan