Norwegian Forest Cat vs Ragamuffin

This breed is marketed as a hardy, naturally-evolved landrace with few health problems, which is true for most individuals, but it carries a rare fatal metabolic disease that kills affected kittens in infancy or early kittenhood, and Cornell's feline health center also lists it among breeds with elevated hypertrophic cardiomyopathy risk — a DNA test exists for the fatal condition and there is no excuse for a breeder not to use it.

Ragamuffin breeders lean hard on the phrase 'hybrid vigor' from outcrossing to domestic longhairs, but the breed's own official CFA page still lists the two most serious diseases of the Ragdoll family — hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and polycystic kidney disease — as real risks, so a Ragamuffin kitten needs the same cardiac and kidney health testing in its parents that a Ragdoll does.