Kiri Lodge History
Rag Doll cats make exquisite companions.
My love affair with ragdolls began when I saw 2 at a friends’ home and became obsessed to buy one for myself.
I had a chinchilla called Natasha and a grey domestic short hair cat called Lavender at the time and I thought this was enough.
However in March of 2008 I fractured my leg and was off work for 4 months….this was the time, when I was quite bored and had time to spend with a kitten…I bought one!
She was a blue point and I called her Kiri.
Kiri was one of the joys of my life and I enjoyed her immensley.
I was devastated when my 3 cats did not survive the Kinglake bushfires on February 7th 2009. Our whole property was destroyed and I missed my cats very much.
My neighbour gave me a clay model of a cat with wings and three rose bushes which will be planted in remembrance of my cats. The cat with wings I placed on the altar of a little church in Buxton where we had a service for those pets who were lost in the fires.
After a few months I found I could not be without a cat any longer and began looking around at rag dolls kittens.
I found a beautiful seal point girl who I called Georgiana and she lived with me in the caravan I was living in while awaiting the building of the Barn.
Georgiana was a great joy and very close to me and remains so.
When Georgiana was about 12 months old I decided to become a registered breeder and this came about because I realized that I had such a passion for rag doll cats and wanted to breed them as a hobby but I wanted to go about this in the right way. I was interested in their parentage and how to breed for quality which could only be possible if I knew their pedigree. After doing some research and talking with registered breeders I registered with the Feline Control Council of Victoria.
I was put in touch with Jarrah Rag Dolls and bought a delightful blue mitted girl who I called Lotus Lucciana.
By this time we were living in the barn which was decked out as a flat with bathroom and kitchen. I built a large cat run attached to the barn so my two feline darlings could play outside safely.
We then had some builders begin the process of building our new home and six months later we moved in just before Christmas 2009.
When I took Lucciana over to the new house she became frightened and hid in the laundry. I brought Georgiana over then and she found Lucciana and put her paws around and cuddled her.
A few months later I was now in the flow and bought a chocolate pointed boy also from Jarrah Rag Dolls and we called him Apollo.
For the previous 2 years I had been interested in developing a small home business as we were on 10 acres of lush land and my passion for cats resulted in going through the process of obtaining a permit to have a boarding cattery. Now that we were living in our new home we had a wonderful facility in the barn which was lined and insulated and with bathroom facilities.
We called the business Kiri Lodge after the rag doll cat we had lost in the fires. We now have a permit to board up to 12 cats
In January 2010 I came across Miss Sophie Sue who was a 12 month old blue bicolour and we decided to buy her from Myerangie Rag Dolls and she was soon after to produce 2 gorgeous kittens. This was our first registered litter.
I became interested in producing chocolate and lilac kittens and I spent a few months trying to locate a lilac stud male to mate with my blue girls but to no avail. However my enquiries did bear some fruit as I found a blue point boy carrying chocolate in New Zealand with a Swedish pedigree on his Sire’s side. He wasn’t old enough to mate with my girls yet but I decided to buy him because I loved the look in his eyes. We had him flown over and he is a delightful addition to our family and made himself adorable to us and our other cats who accepted him immediately. It is easier for cats to accept a younger cat and Shura was only 5 months old.
To my astonishment, the same week that I began to make arrangments for Shura to be flown over I saw an advertisement on Pet Link for a Lilac stud working boy for sale. I just had to have him as both my boys I thought would be too young to mate with the girls. So I bought him and with him a blue /cream girl who was pregnant to him.
Now we have Shilo our lilac mitted boy and Persephone our blue/cream girl.
All of these beautiful creatures great and small complete our cat family to date and I love and nurture them all.
Rag Doll cats love to be with you and will follow you around the house and settle down for a snooze wherever you may be.
They are basically an indoor cat ,but they do like to go outside sometimes if you are with them, having an outside cat run is ideal as they can enjoy the sunshine and be safe.
If you allow your rag doll cat to roam around outside they run the risk of becoming infected by or being mauled by other cats in the neighbourhood, or being stolen.
My cats come with me when I feed the chooks and if they get too close to the chooks they will be pecked on the nose which teaches them manners.