It's taken a while, but we are now in a position to predict the outcome of a possible mating. Q. What would we expect then from a cross between a dumbo and dumbo carrier? A. Dumbo is recessive and must be dudu , and the carrier must be Dudu. The punnet diagram therefore would look like:

Statistically, half of the babies will be top-eared carrying dumbo, the other half will be dumboes. If the average litter size is 8 to 12, then expect 4 to 6 of each. You may be lucky and get more dumboes than that. Remember, the same laws govern this kind of outcome as govern the sex of human children. You might reckon a family with four children would be two boys and two girls, but remember 1 in every 8 family will be either all boys or girls. Also remember you are only calculating the effect of one gene and are assuming the other genes will stay the same.

So far I have used phrases like 'true-breeding self', but in reality you are unlikely to know unless you have seen the ancestors or have a reliable family-tree. However, all is not lost as you use your own observations with the information learnt so far to work back and fill in a few of the blanks.

The first two litters that Deb and I bred were with two husky does Skye and Forth sired by a husky carrier.

So we were expecting about 20 kits, half of which to be huskies. The fur on kittens doesn't show at first, but you can tell which kits are husky after 24 hours, even sooner than you can tell what colour they are.

Skye was first to give birth by a few days. Out of the eight kittens, and we were unlucky as none were husky. Anticipation was mounting for our very first husky kitten from Forth. It turned out she had eleven kits and we had no huskies there either.

As it turns out the chances of having 19 non-husky kits from a husky carrier in this case is about half a million to one. We were a bit surprised and let the owner know he wasn't a husky carrier after all, but we also had some good news as well.

Out of all the nineteen kittens, five were buff. That would suggest that both our does and the stud all carried the ruby-eyed gene (which makes blacks go buff, and agoutis go topaz) and we hadn't known it!