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Several years ago, one of
my sons told me he was looking at greeting cards and he saw this one card that had this woman and a bunch of
cats on the front of it. He said in the picture on the card they were all around her in this chair
she was sitting in and she even had one sitting on top of her head, and the first thought he had when he saw
that picture was "That reminds me of my mom !!" So, I guess you know you've made it to that "special place"
when your kids think of you when they see pictures like that and they start calling you "The crazy cat
lady" !!! Several other Ragdoll Breeders I've spoken to have kids that call them crazy cat ladies too. I like
to think that I'm in very good company and that it's a right of passage into being a Breeder with a big heart for
the cats I help bring into this world and frankly, as long as I can have my Ragdolls around me the rest of
my days here on planet Earth, I'll take the hit on being the crazy cat lady. And along with being a "crazy
cat lady" in the eyes of my 3 sons, comes the uncertainty of what I might do next....every time I say to one of them, "Hey, guess what I got today?", I
get an answer like "Oh, no, mom, you didn't get another cat, did you?" Ok, Ok, so, I can take a joke,
anyone who knows me will tell you that...... but to be purrrfectly honest.....I have to admit, the answer to that question
has been "yes" on several occasions.......... I always loved cats and when I
was young, I was notorious for bringing in the cats. They always just followed me home (that was my story then
and I'm still stickin' to it, and I'm more than sure that me walking backwards and saying "Come on, kitty,
kitty, kitty" the entire time I was walking home had absolutely no affect on the number of cats that followed
me home in those early years). My mom never let me keep the ones I brought home and eventually, they found
their way back to the place I had so lovingly lured them from. In my early childhood we did have two cats that were 'keepers'.
One was named Maynard G. Krebbs and the other's name was Dobie Gillis. Maynard was a black and white cat that hated
us kids. We wanted nothing more than to lug him around with us and kiss and hug on him and he was very opposed
to all of our caring efforts. The only time I remember that cat being nice to one of us was when he crawled up into
a chair and went to sleep with one of my sisters who was already asleep in the chair. My parents actually took
a picture of it to memorialize the moment. Other than that, I learned the meaning of 'tooth, fang and claw' from Maynard. Suffice
to say that Maynard was my mother's cat, and only my mother's cat, and he either stayed as far away from
us kids as he could, or he came out scratchin', one of the two. The other cat we had was named Dobie Gillis and
he was a long haired, all white cat with blue eyes. Dobie was also deaf. At the time this was going
on, it was in the mid 60's, and unlike it is nowadays, very few people back then had 'inside
only' cats. My mom let the cats outside all the time and to my knowledge, she was not ever going to make either
one of them 'inside only' cats. Subsequently, Marcy, a neighbor lady down the street, took Dobie into her
house and wouldn't give him back to us. The story I got was that she said we were negligent for letting the
cat be outside when he was deaf because he could easily be killed by a car, a dog, etc., with his 'handicap'....and
she was right. I loved Dobie and I spent hours and hours carrying him around with me and playing with
him in our backyard. So, after Marcy took Dobie, part of me hated her for taking my cat from
me, but later when Maynard was hit and killed by a car right out in front of our house, I was glad that Marcy kept Dobie in her house, because at least in her house, I knew he was safe. I was
very young when this happened, but I still remember it so well. Even though Maynard was a mean cat to us kids,
I had nightmares for weeks about Maynard being run over by a car and killed and then on top of that, my heart was broken because
I missed Dobie. To help me through my loss of Dobie, I used to jump the fence at Marcy's house while they were
at work and go to all the windows on the back of the house to see if I could see Dobie inside her house.
Since he was deaf, knocking on the window, or calling his name, would have done no good at all, so all I could do was
to watch him through the windows and hope he'd see me and come over to the window to spend some time with me. Marcy
and her husband eventually moved away from that house and then I lost Dobie forever, but at least I knew she was taking
care of him like he deserved. I also have vivid memories of going to the drive-in movie when the "Three Lives of Thomasina" first
came out in 1964. I was a little over 4 years old at that time. I remember crying in the back-seat when I
thought the cat had died and over the years, I have always remembered that movie and likened myself to the 'witch'
that took in all the animals, nursed them back to health and had such a big and caring heart for all animals. The simple truth is that I cannot explain
to anyone why I love cats so much, I just do. My love for cats seems like it has always been a part of me. It
is something that I cannot ever remember not feeling. So, because of my love of cats, I had several over the years.
They were 'rescued' or found, but when they became mine, I loved them all, but then..... Enter Babydoll..... She was a rescue from Citizens for
Animal Protection (CAPS) in Houston. I went there because I had decided that I wanted to get a Siamese cat.
My friend I had growing up named Becky Clevenger had one I always remembered named 'Suki' and my mom and dad had one
for years named 'Zena' and I wanted to finally get a Siamese cat of my own. We had already found
a female Siamese cat that we decided to get and then the lady that helped us find the Siamese cat says
to me that they have a "2 for 1 special going on" and I should get another cat. And then she tells
me that she has this female cat in the back that is "to die for" as she puts it, and so I said
"Well bring her out and let me meet her"....and it was love at first sight. She was big, fat, furry, and had
beautiful piercing blue eyes and from the moment I held her, I knew I had to have her. She was like holding a baby
that held on to you and to say the least, that cat stole my heart. Babydoll and I were inseparable. I've
heard it said that 'cats pick you, you don't pick them', and with Babydoll, she picked me. If she had a choice,
she'd be in my lap purring up a storm, with this look on her face and in her eyes like there was no other place in the
world that she'd rather be. Strange as it may sound, I cannot describe my feelings about that cat....still to this day
there are no words that adequately describe what I still feel for Babydoll. By the best guesstimate of my Vet, she was
a much older cat and a retired breeder since she had a C-Section scar on her belly. When I got Babydoll, I had
no idea at that point in time what a "Ragdoll cat" was. I just knew I loved her and she loved me. I'd
only had Romeo, another cat of mine, for a month or so before I got Babydoll and needless to say, after that,
I was up to my buns in lovin' between the two of them because as his name suggests, he too is a real 'lover'. Several
years passed with me lovin' on my cats and then tragedy struck....I lost Babydoll in November 2007. And then one day in early 2008, I saw a picture of a Seal Bicolor Ragdoll and I realized at that point that
Babydoll had been a Seal Bicolor Ragdoll cat. After I found out about this, I started researching
the Ragdoll breed. Subsequently, during my research, I found out that Romeo, my incredibly loving, blue-eyed,
fat, hairy cream colored cat with tabby red markings on his face, legs and tail, is a Flame Point Ragdoll. As it turned
out with both Romeo and Babydoll, it was the Ragdoll disposition that I fell in love with, not so much the look, since they
both looked so different from each other. Prior to finding out he was a Ragdoll, I just knew Romeo was an
incredibly loving cat, hence he got the name "Romeo" and Babydoll, well she was just as lovable and always
wanted to be held like a babydoll. When Babydoll died, I was devastated. I cannot think about
her and write this without tearing up. Since finding out after her death that "Ragdoll" cats exist, I
have forged head-long into the Ragdoll breed. I talked to numerous other Breeders and spent almost an
entire year's worth of time reading, researching, and investigating what it would take to start a cattery, before I
decided that not only do I want to love and own Ragdolls for the rest of my life, I want to be a part of their legacy and
share them with the world. Ragdoll cats are incredible creatures and I am proud to join the ranks as a Breeder of Ragdolls Cats.....
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