[JeanieK]

Originally Posted by Alliec1

As I said when I gave the gene example, I was oversimplifying it greatly to explain it to the people that don't understand why a dog can have a gene and it doesn't show up. I didn't get into incomplete dominance or co-dominance because that would be a HUGE can of worms. There are also instances where other coat genes (there are separate genes for color that intermingle with each other) mask even dominant genes, such as the case with tan/gold coloring. In the end, everything works together, but in order to get anything close to looking like a parti, you must have the correct set of genes. Therefore, the parti gene is actually a set of genes that interact with another set to create the coloring. It's kind of like a rock-paper-scissors situation. Because the overly dominant genes are blue/black and tan/gold, that is why they are seen so often, but it does not mean that they were not there to 'begin with' (take 'begin with ' as whatever you may, as someone said, all dogs originated as crosses.)

For instance, I bet many of you didn't know that the dominant gene for humans is to have SIX toes. Yes, dominant. So, why doesn't it show up very often? It is because the majority of humans are carriers of the recessive 5-toe gene. If somebody with 5-toes would ever have kids with a 6-toer, 6-toed kids would have a 50% chance or better of showing up.
Did we outcross with another species to get this 'messed up' trait? Of course not. It's just not prolific enough in the gene pool to show up. The same happens with parti coloring.

I didn't know that. That's very interesting. About the toes I mean.