How can you tell for sure what a kitty is hiding?

[Tad Carlucci]

It's a process of logical deduction, and can get quite complex.

The basic rule, though, is simple: you're "looking for something different."

The parents show two furs (for instance, and which may be the same fur, it doesn't matter) and the offspring shows "something different," you know one of the parents "hides" exactly that something different, and the other hides it, or something more recessive (which can be what they show).

By repeated application of that simple rule, and knowledge of which (in this case) furs are dominant over the others, you can deduce what is hidden in the parents and/or the offspring, as well as determine the dominance relationship between furs you've never seen before.

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Example 1:

Both parents show "Genesis - Coco"; the offspring shows "American Shorthair - Red Tabby". One parent, we don't yet know which, hides exactly "American Shorthair - Red Tabby". If you did not yet know "Genesis - Coco" is dominant over "American Shorthair - Red Tabby", this proves it. (Not that we needed to prove it in this case: KittyCatS! told us this, way back In The Beginning).

Example 2:

Change one parent to mate with a "Russian - White" and say the offspring from this is another "Russian - White". We know (since KittyCatS! said so) that "Genesis - Coco" is dominant over "Russian - White", so we can deduce that the "Genesis - Coco" parent hides "Russian - White" or something more recessive than "Russian - White". If we know (say, from experience, or by checking Saga's charts [same thing, just borrowing someone else's experiences]) that "American Shorthair - Red Tabby" is dominant over "Russian - White" this eliminates that "Genesis - Coco" parent as being the source of the "American Shorthair - Red Tabby" in the first example.

That leaves the other parent from the first example as the only possible source of "American Shorthair - Red Tabby".

It also tells us that that "American Shorthair - Red Tabby" box, still unopened, hides either "Russian - White" or something more recessive than "Russian - White"