Fellow Ragdoll Breed Group Members and Ragdoll Lovers –
This current election for Breed Committee member is extremely important to the future of our Ragdoll Breed. Do you want to keep the Ragdoll as a blue-eyed, pointed breed in the standard colors? There are breeders who are currently pushing for us to change our standard to accept non-standard variants such as mink, sepia, and solids for championship status. It seems their suggestion is to accept any Ragdoll with 5 generations of only registered Ragdolls in the pedigree for championship, regardless of color. Adding these colors, or non-pointed, or other eye color would be a drastic change to the breed and one that no other major cat association recognizes. There are 4 people, who I know of, that are running for Ragdoll Breed Committee this year with a goal of changing our Ragdoll standard to allow for these colors.
This past term I made several attempts to present ideas to the TICA Board that would prevent this changing of the Ragdoll breed to include these non-standard variants. I failed but I learned a lot. The entire breed committee supported me and helped with ideas and information. We worked hard to tighten our standard and keep our Ragdolls from taking on the look of one region or one group of catteries. But that is not enough to prevent the non-standard variant breeders from pushing forward with their goal of changing the Ragdoll. What I learned in my attempts to stop this from happening has made me better prepared to succeed at this challenge.
There are other goals for the next breed committee to accomplish such a seminars and better training materials. When you have a good group of people that are all working toward the same goals, these things can also be accomplished. I am proud of what our committee did accomplish.
It was nice to have a committee that represented lots of areas of the world. Ragdolls are loved all over the world and it is important to hear your voice. I intend to set up an online forum where you can submit ideas and concerns to the breed committee and get answers back from them so your input will be visible to the entire committee and responded to by a number of committee members.
We really need your help to keep the Ragdolls so that they look like Ragdolls – blue-eyed, pointed, and conforming to our current standard.
I would appreciate your support to be elected to the breed committee for another term.
