Cat Ragdoll rescue

Cat Ragdoll rescue - not for these gorgeous cats photo copyright Helmi Flick of course.

If you are looking to adopt a purebred cat, Ragdoll rescue may be the way forward. Firstly, the Ragdoll cat is a fine cat. She is a large cat, one of the larger domestic cats. She is better suited to the full-time indoor life, which seems to be "the way" in the USA. I go on about indoor cats, I know, but it would be much better if, while humans are trying to make the world less hostile to the domestic cat, we allowed our cats out in outside enclosures. I just don't see it as natural and fair to keep a cat imprisoned.

Ragdolls are not totally placid cat furniture however. Although probably better suited to indoor living they are as inquisitive and as "naughty" (in the nicest possible way) as the next cat. And they shed and need frequent grooming (so fairly high maintenance really).

Cats are naturally inquisitive, hence the 9 lives idea. Their inquisitiveness gets them into trouble. When you block that natural instinctive desire to find things and to explore things by making the cat's environment completely bland as it will tend to be if keep indoors all the time, you take away a large part of the cat's life.

If the argument for imprisoning a cat is that it is dangerous to let her out (the only argument), then we shouldn't breed and keep cats until we can let them out without it being too dangerous.

Back to finding a cat and Ragdoll rescue. I've built some pages on rescue on the main site. There are a number of purebred rescue routes . You'll find a number of Yahoo Groups on the page linked. Yahoo groups require a bit more work because you have to join Yahoo and then the group. Then you have to email people and read emails to keep in the loop but I sense the rewards are there for those who do it.

Another indoor cat is the Persian (maybe this is a major reason why this cat breed is popular in the States). There are also a number Persian cat rescue routes both in the USA and the UK.


Cat, Ragdoll rescue - no not this one - loved and photographed with equal passion by Tom Poes photo copyright Tom Poes reproduced under creative commons license.

As for finding a cat and Ragdoll rescue here are some rescue operations:

The first is based in the UK and is called The United Kingdom Ragdoll Cat Community. It was founded in 2004 so it is well established. It gets listed top of the pile in a Google search - well done guys particularly Darren Farrow who looks after the website - nice work. This is a "real" website, active and full of real and interesting information.

If you are having difficulty coping in caring for your Raggie and are living in the UK, I'd definitely recommend this charity as the first port of call as they look very organized. In fact they are able to assist whatever the breed of cat as they can call upon a network of contacts in the cat rescue world.

The next is:

The British Ragdoll Cat Club ,which was founded in 1987 (very well established). This is an active club with 600 or more members. As part of their services they provide a rehoming and rescue service. Another must see site if you're looking to adopt a purebred cat, Ragdoll rescue through this club is a good option.

For the USA the best method is probably to use the general web portal site Petfinder.com as a lot of rescue centers are "affiliated" to this business by advertising their cats through the Petfinder website as they have the technology to do this. One such rescue operation using Petfinder is Ragdoll Rescue USA. This seems to be a fairly small or perhaps growing group of volunteers and they need more helpers (foster homes).

Since making this post I have another on Ragdoll cat rescue on the main website - it contains some more links.

Cat Ragdoll Rescue to Ragdoll cats