- We breed lifetime companions -

The Origin of Fishbone Ragdolls…

It all started when in September, Mauro bought a silver-shaded Persian to Petra as a gift.  After a couple of months, they started looking for a companion for Sophie and it was then that they introduced Toby, a bi-colour persian to their home.

In December of the same year, we were coincidentally passing by a hotel and a show banner attracted our attention.  It looked fun so we decided to give it a go and the next time round we enrolled our  cats and results were satisfying enough to give us an incentive to keep interest in the cat fancy.

The nature of my daily job [organising events for multinational companies] tempted the committee members of the cat club and they invited me to join the committee, however before even joining the club was dissolved and a group of people with fresh ideas and a lot of energy asked if I wished to form part of the new “Malta Cat Club” which would be carrying the TICA flag.

Passing from FIFE to TICA brought drastic changes and to be honest at first it sounded very complicated however experience showed us that TICA is truly Fun.  The members of the committee started supporting me in introducing a new breed in Malta since cat shows are predominantly crowded by persians.  I remember a couple of breeds that were mentioned during our long conversations were the Devon Rex, Selkirk Rex, Abyssinian and Ragdolls.

The race was on and I remember that for a couple of weeks, Google became our best friend.  We used to spend hours searching and learning about these breeds.  In October 2008, the decision was taken.  RAGDOLLS!

For weeks we felt like Noah, looking for the pair of ragdolls to take on his boat! Since these would have been the first pair of ragdolls in Malta forming part of a breeding program the search wasn’t easy at all.  The amount of closed doors we found by foreign breeders were endless, mainly due to the fact that we couldn’t present to them a breeding program.

When we fond Mr Bojangles it was one of the nicest Christmas presents ever.  Although at first, negotiations weren’t easy, since once again we couldn’t present a breeding program, Sue Davis of Adoring Ragdolls [UK] was very helpful during the rest of the “adoption” process.  I can never forget the day when i walked in Sue’s house on a cold and rainy February day, and I saw Mr. Bojangles coming down the stairs.  Of all the cats, I immediately knew it was him.  Flew back to Malta and the  days in quarantine seemed endless.  Although in Malta they allow you to visit your cat practically anytime during the day, it was still very difficult to leave him alone in the evening.

I can never stop expressing my gratitude to Sue for her support and for entrusting us with Mr Bojangles.  She was also very supportive when I asked her for a reference letter to be enrolled as a TICA Breed Mentor.

The entrance of Mr Bojangles in our home was like a blessing since a couple of weeks afterwards we found Glamour from Angelicdolls [Sweden].  In April we flew to Stockholm to pick her up and the settling in was much easier than the one of Mr. Bojangles since no quarantine was required for her [6 months had passed from the rabies vaccination].

So finally after 6 months of research, unstoppable correspondence and research, we had the first pair of Ragdolls in Malta.