Never tried the toothbrush thing. Wouldn’t hurt though.

Also, you won’t really need to check for dreads much until her hair grows out, just do normal grooming. Maybe in 6 months? I can’t remember how long it took.

Dunno what you consider expensive, but my ragdoll was $650 about 6.5 years ago. This was out of southern CA.

Totally worth it though. She was so well socialized I can even trim all her nails in one go with no restraint necessary.

Oh yeah my girl is totally worth it. She’s actually pretty low maintenance other than getting fur on everything. She loves getting combed, and tolerates nail trimming! The only time she gets a little bitey is when I’m working on a particularly tough dread, and even then I can usually go at it for a while before she finally says “enough!”

Also, dreads will tend to form under your girl’s armpits and right underneath the tail on the sides. Just feel around there as you groom her and start working them out as soon as you find them.

You may find black clothes to be not worth the effort after a while😩. Ragdoll fur clings to everything. I almost never wear my black hoodie because effort.

Also, I find a comb with rotating bristles like the “Untangler” work well on ragdolls, especially for dreads which can get pretty gnarly with that ultra fine hair. You might want to combine one with a Furminator or ShedMonster which don’t break up dreads as well, but honestly I eventually started to use the Untangler as my primary comb. As long as you groom them weekly, dreads stay pretty manageable.