Ragdoll Cat Forums

Just wondering what age do you start to see their personalities developing? I go to see my kitten again this weekend, she will be 9 weeks old.

Thanks

Birth.

How exciting another visit! I'm guessing by this age you will be able to see your kitty's basic personality, if she's outgoing or shy, playful or reserved etc. Have fun and take lots of pics!

PS lol at Jan's one-word reply

I tend to see more of the personality emerge around 5 weeks of age.
It is an ongoing process of nature, nuture, and environment.

By 9 weeks of age and during your visit you should be able to tell a lot

Thanks girls, and Jan...too funny!

I'll take more pics for sure!

Definitely by 9 weeks you should have a good idea of what the future holds behaviour wise for your kitten. Enjoy your visit

I can usually REALLY tell by the time they're 5 weeks, but honestly, they really are different from each other from the time they're only a few days old.

My kittens are only 3 weeks old, and already I can tell which one is the lover, which one is the spunky/playful one, and which ones are the most balanced with lots of loveys and playfulness.

I'm certainly NOT an expert on this, but my experience with my kitten is very much in line with what the true experts above have been saying. I can share my experience with this issue from a different perspective (non-breeder, non-expert, know-nothing novice ). I would definitely say that the breeder probably already knows a whole lot about your kitten's personality, and advise you to trust the breeder. When I visited my kitten at 8 weeks old she was very busy and playful and not really interested in me at all. She bounced away from me when I tried to hold her or pet her and just wanted to play with her siblings. If I had based my opinion strictly off MY own impression of that 1 hour I spent with her, I might not have gotten her. However, I shared my concerns with the breeder, and she very candidly explained my kitten's personality in detail. She was honest about the fact that this kitten IS playful and can be independent at times, but she assured me that she is also a big sweetheart who loves people and attention the vast majority of the time (Sidenote: the breeder also offered me choice of other kittens which made me feel that she wasn't just trying to tell me anything to get me to take the kitten I had already picked). Since I have gotten my kitten home, the breeder's assessment has proved to be totally accurate. Pretty much everything she told me about my kitten's personality and quirks was dead-on. So yes, as everyone says, you CAN tell personality really early on, but the breeder herself is probably in the best position to explain what he/she is like. My intuition, as a non-expert who didn't know the kittens well, turned out to be too quick to judge and a little bit off-base as a result.

Another anecdote, while I was visiting my uncooperative kitten, there was another male kitten who was claimed by someone else who was super loving and crawling all over my lap. I had the biggest lump of disappointment in my throat because all I could think was that I had picked the wrong kitten, and so was wishing that I could have picked a sweetheart like the boy in my lap. Then the breeder told me that she had been SO embarrassed when the little boy's future owners had visited because the little stinker had HISSED at them. LOL that made me feel better. So who can tell? Definitely not me!!

Have fun visiting your kitten! I bet you are SO excited!

Sheri, I thought I was going to be selecting my Ragdoll kitten at the 7 week mark, but the breeder changed it to 5 weeks instead. She had me listed as 3rd pick overall and there were 6 kittens in the litter. Anyway, the breeder had the personalities down pat by 5 weeks old. All that she said about Phoenix, even back then, still holds true today. I adopted him at exactly 12 weeks old. He's such a snuggler and has a fun outgoing personality. Oh, and I never met him til the adoption day due to distance issues, so it was all based on trust, communications from the breeder and pictures....she send me lots of them. :-)

Good to hear, Thanks everyone, I was hoping to see her what her personality is like when I visit this weekend. The breeder hasn't really told me how she is so far, last time I asked her (about 3-4 weeks ago) she said it was too soon to really tell yet. So now she is 8 weeks old today, so by what you all say, I should see how she is this weekend.