I was poking around in one market the other morning for one specific kind of cat and found three examples of cats being labeled as hiding a certain trait that it clearly wasn't hiding (either by use of the word "hiding", stating a trait was in the background, or that the cat was an offspring of another with a certain trait; some claimed the cat was hiding a trait that was more dominant than the shown trait, one was stated as hiding a trait that was the hidden trait of a parent from which the kitten's shown trait clearly came from, etc).
Funny, as I'm typing the draft of this note, it's happening again in a chat: someone is asking for help with a cat labeled as "X trait hiding Y trait" where Y is more dominant than the shown X trait, but is the shown fur of one parent.
Anyway, I NC'd all three sellers with explanations that were clear and kind (I hope) and heard back from all three: in all cases it was simply a matter of not understanding how inherited traits worked. All were embarrassed by their mistakes and asked for help. One was actually given bad advice from someone else previously: After advertising a cat as having a more dominant trait hidden, they were contacted by another breeder that said this was wrong and they should instead list the trait as "being in the background" !! I was appalled and felt bad for the person that was given this unsound advice.
So here's a summary of the three situations, and maybe this can be used as a learning opportunity somewhere:
(If you're one of the people I talked to,
)
1. Cat with recessive trait X hiding dominant trait Y, because one parent shows X and the other parent shows Y.
Can't happen: A dominant trait can never hide behind a recessive one. The parent showing trait Y must have a hidden fur more recessive than trait X, which was passed to the kitten.
2. Cat with recessive trait X has dominant trait Y in the background.
Who cares? A dominant trait can't hide behind a recessive one so who cares if a parent had trait Y? It has no effect on the breeding of this kitten - trait Y can never be bred out.
This is the same as saying a cat with recessive trait X is an offspring of dominant trait Y. It doesn't matter - you can't breed trait Y out from behind X anyway, so mentioning it is pointless.
3. This can get confusing so I'll use an example:
Kitten shows Odyssy Rainbow eyes and hides Strawberry Bellini, where Mom shows Odyssey Rainbow and has an Strawberry Bellini Mom (kitten's grandma) and Dad shows Blush Quartz.
Wrong.
Odyssey Rainbow > Strawberry Bellini > Blush Quartz
If Kitten is showing Mom's shown eye, Kitten must have gotten her hidden eye from Dad's shown or hidden eye. Dad is showing Blush Quartz and therefore can only hide Blush Quartz or Odyssey Bellini (or something new and undiscovered) (Dad can't be hiding Ody Rainbow because it's dominant to his shown Blush Quartz). Therefore, kitten hides Blush Quartz or better.
Interestingly, 2 of the three people I spoke with said it was hard to find help: they were too embarrassed to ask, were afraid to ask (feeling stupid, troll encounters, etc), never knew WHO to ask so as to get correct info, etc.
The third stated that there was a big language barrier, and would love to get help in their own language.
Please Be Carefull !!
