About Simply Ragdolls

I prepared in excitement for our new kitten’s arrival, deciding to share the news with my mom and all of my eighth grade students. However, one of these tasks was a little more daunting than the other. My students were thrilled to help me decide on a name! They made suggestions ranging from Spoon to Mr. Marshmallow Fluffy Face. (Eighth graders really are the best kind of weird!) My favorite suggestion was Bartholomew, or Bartholomeow as my husband joked.

My mom was another story. I called her as I drove home from school that day and had her on speaker phone in my car as I pulled into to the Chick-fil-a drive thru. “I have something to tell you,” I said sheepishly.

“What is it?” she asked with noted hesitation.

I pulled up to the window. “…maybe I’ll wait a moment so you don’t ridicule me in front of everyone at Chick-fil-a…”

“Don’t tell me you got another dog…”

Silence. *Crinkle crinkle crinkle. “Thank you, have a nice day!” I rolled up my window and mustered the courage. “Well, not another dog,” I paused, “but we are getting a cat.”

Silence.

I proceeded to share the research I had done and explain how this all came about. I imagine she thought I had completely lost my mind. Three dogs and now a cat? Not to mention I was six months pregnant at the time. Maybe I was a little bit crazy.

Bartholomew quickly made himself at home, both in our house and in our hearts. He was all I could have wanted and more! My sweet Barty Boy. And as for the man who was not a cat man? Well, that changed very quickly. Eric loved Barty as much as I did.

Soon, we started noticing some odd symptoms. Bouts of lethargy, incontinence, facial swelling, an unexplained broken leg. We had his leg repaired and worked closely with our vet to monitor his symptoms. We tried different medications, but nothing seemed to help. This went on for several months.

Then March came. I was up in the night, nursing Isaac, and heard Bartholomew get down from his usual place on our bed. I texted my husband to go check on him and all seemed okay. I went about business as usual until the next morning. Bart had developed a habit of greeting me each morning and following me downstairs for my coffee and his morning snuggles. This morning, however, he was nowhere to be found. As I held my newborn son, I searched for my sweet kitten. Laundry room? Nope. Closet? Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I went back to the laundry room to see if I had missed him since he would sometimes blend in with his fluffy bed. No Barty. I lifted the flap of his litter box with my toe, and my stomach immediately dropped. I felt tears well in my eyes, and I walked away as if willing the truth away too. I came down the stairs, panic in my voice. “Eric, I need you to go check on Barty. He’s in his litter box.” Something in my face must have caught him off guard because Eric dropped what he was doing and dashed upstairs. I sat on the couch and tried to breathe. Only a moment later, Eric returned, pausing on the stairs. “Is he dead?” I asked, but I already knew. We sobbed together in despair and disbelief.

Some amount of time passed, and I eventually reached out to the breeder to let her know what had happened. She seemed genuinely shocked but also somewhat unbothered, defensive almost. I knew she had a clause about a health guarantee in her contract, but because things had happened so suddenly, we had decided not to pursue any post-mortem examination. I hesitantly (and, in hindsight, I can see stupidly) inquired about a new kitten, and made plans to bring home two together, a boy and a girl, Theodore and Marie. (Of course it had to be Marie. I mean, it was basically destiny.)

To make a long story somewhat shorter, Theodore started showing symptoms very similar to those we had seen in Bart. Bouts of lethargy, facial swelling, notable miscoordination, and a new one: seizures. It was all too much to be a coincidence. We tried every test and medication our vets could think of, even taking him to a neuro specialist and coordinating with the veterinary team at CSU. Nothing made sense. After months of this, it was clear Theo was beyond the point of recovery, and we made the devastating choice to end his suffering.

I again reached out to the breeder, this time with the evidence of the countless tests and the necropsy report. I was met again with defensiveness. Maybe it was my fault. They didn’t even share the same genetics, after all. Despite the flaws and blatant inaccuracy of her argument, she ultimately refused to accept any accountability for what had happened. I, in my grieving state, resolved to learn as much about her business as I could. I found that she was indeed not a TICA-registered breeder and was producing more than the number of litters allowed to be bred annually in a facility without a state license. I was outraged by the whole thing. However, I also felt somewhat responsible for naively doing business with a dishonest breeder, for failing to ask the right questions, and for ignoring the red flags along the way. Ultimately, I decided I would become the Ragdoll breeder I wished I had found the first time around.