are "Shades" completely random?

[Arwen Swordthain]

Keep trying you will eventually get a cat with Natural shade, the cats do seem to like to frustrate us though. Unfortunately because you can't "hide" the natural shade it will be nigh on impossible to know for sure if you manage to ever breed a pure one, in your case you will still likely have a blush or a flash lurking back there. As you are breeding 2 Naturals then you do stand a chance at getting a cat with natural passed from both parents but as I said no way of knowing, although breeding 2 natural offspring from this current pairing and only getting Natural would certainly indicate one of the cats might be pure, this is why many of us line breed, it solidifys the traits we want to keep and reduces our chances at random hiddens popping back out, but as the others have said a recessive can pass unseen for generations, 8 is the record for me, I'm sure others can track back even further