Visible fur color inheritance/mutation slots in Petz 3 breeds

[malymin]

People who don't play petz will probably be confused by this, so here's a quote from the Crushing Petz genetics guide:

The Coat Colors slots correspond to the 1-5 FurColorTraits under [Fur Color Areas] in the LNZ. Some of the colors you see in these slots in GenePoolz won't appear on your petz depending on their species, breed, or markings, and no breed utilizes all five Fur Color Areas at once - most dog coats only use slots 1, 2, and 5, while Calico coats use slots 1 through 4, more than any other breed.

Box 1 from the left is the base coat color in all breeds. Boxes 2 through 4 correspond to certain marking colors. In dogz box 2 is the color of spots, socks, halfie markings, and so on. Note that paintball markings like spots and patches are programmed not to visibly change color on the pet however - only coat markings like the halfie marking will show this color. Box 5 is jowl color in dogz and some cat breeds.

The Box 5 jowl color will never mutate, so your purebred Bulldogs or Mutts will only ever have grey jowls. If you wanted a Mutt with white jowls, you would need to mix a Dalmatian or Sheepdog into your line since they carry white in that 5th slot. The appearance of the jowls will also depend on coat type and the breed of the head. As you can see with the Bulldogs above, the grey jowls show up on the dog with the Dachshund coat, but aren't visible on the Dalmatian coat. If the dog with the Dachshund coat had a Dalmatian head instead, the grey wouldn't be visible because Dalmatian heads don't show a jowl marking either.

In catz the jowls can work a bit differently. The grey Alley muzzle is a marking tied to the Marking 2 slot, while Tabby and Siamese jowls are tied to the second Coat Color slot and thus are able to mutate. The B+W Shorthair and Maine Coon muzzle markings however are tied to the 5th Coat Color slot, so like dog jowls they will never mutate and can only inherit static colors from other breeds.

And with that here out of the way, here's the chart I made:

[Fur Color Areas] in Petz 3 Coat Patterns
Catz	visible fur slots					Dogz	visible fur slots
	Mutating				5 (jowl)		Mutating				5 (jowl)
Alley Cat	1					Bulldog	1				yes
B+W Shorthair	1	2			yes	Chihuahua	1
Calico	1	2	3	4		Dachshund	1	2			yes*
Chinchilla Persian	1					Dalmatian	1
Maine Coon	1	2			yes	Great Dane	1				yes
Orange Shorthair	1	2				Labrador	1
Persian	1					Mutt	1				yes
Russian Blue	1					Poodle	1	2			yes
Siamese	1	2				Scottie	1	2
Tabby	1	2				Sheepie	1	2
* Only visible in the “body black” variation of the dachshund, not brown or red.

Calicos, as Crush notes, display more color slots than any other official breed - displaying all four "mutating" slots. (There's a good reason calicos are the most popular purebred catz among breeders!) No PFM dog breed displays slots #3 or #4, though they can still mutate those slots invisibly. commander30 's collection of purebred calicos here on Dreamwidth is a great display how how much variety exists within purebred calicos due to their capacity for visible mutation. It also helps that the breed itself is attractively proportioned and is known for producing friendly and charming personalities, of course.

The dogz breeds with the most visible gene slots are Dachsund and Poodle. Since there's three other dogz breeds that have visible muzzle slots but no visible slot #2, and even breeds that don't display muzzle slots carry color alleles (often ones that breeds with visible muzzle slots never carry, like white, gold, or cream), dachshunds and poodles are potentially great to mix with other dogz breeds if you want to display interesting coat color combinations.

Alley cats, chinchilla Persians, Persians, Russian blues, chihuahuas, dalmatians, and Labradors all have "solid" coats, that can only display the slot #1 allele. Any additional colors on them (such as cream spots and grey muzzles on alleys, black spots and ears on dalmatians, or chest patches and boots on chihuahuas) are handled by the [Fur Markings] section, and are thus effectively a "layer" pasted over the base coat that cannot mutate into new colors; instead, they mutate "away" with a low marking factor.

Comments

[oddprophet]

I've never gotten into Petz, but it's fascinating watching someone this deep in its weeds.

[malymin]

The genetics system is probably one of the deepest of any dog/cat ownership sim, so there's a thriving community of petz breeders on Neocities and the like. And some people's petz have ancestors dating back to the 90's!

I'm far from the deepest in the weeds, I just like spreadsheets. ^_^

[oddprophet]

There is more under heaven and earth than dreamed of in my philosophies!

[malymin]

:P

I just hope I continue to be fun to watch infodump, and not, like, annoying. ^_^;