What gives Ragdoll cats such an interesting background is their humble beginnings from the original female called Josephine and the kitten Daddy Warbucks.
The cat Josephine was white with a medium to long-hair coat. One of her parents must have had a colored coat; the white Josephine got from her other parent masked her color. Most white kittens have a spot color somewhere on their heads. This color will fade by the time they reach nine months of age. This spattering of color gives an idea of what their color is beneath their overcoat. One of Josephine’s litters produced Daddy Warbucks, a male who is believed to have contributed the dominant mitting found in the Ragdoll breed. This mitting of their paws separates the Ragdoll cat from the Birman breed to which it bears a resemblance. It is possible that the father of Daddy Warbucks had Siamese markings on his coat. We do know that he carried this gene as a recessive trait; like the father of Buckwheat did. It is this gene, along with others that pass the colors for Chocolate and light blue on to Buckwheat. This combination of Buckwheat and Daddy Warbucks yielded the first color point Ragdoll kitten.
The ingredients for the Ragdoll cat recipe were now in place. This included the Siamese markings and their blue eye color. Coat colors of chocolate and blue were already present to create lilac colored kittens with a semi longhair coat. Inherited as a recessive gene was the short coat so that when two semi longhair ragdoll cats are mated the longhair coat dominates. Three patterns of Ragdoll cats have now been accounted for. These include color point, mitted and bi-color Ragdoll cats.
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I read on some site that only 2 longhaired cats can produce longhaired kittens. And if one is long and one is short the kittens will be short haired. Is that true?