Are all white cats actually white cats? To answer this let’s look at the genes that cause white in the coat of a cat. There are two (2) dominant genes and two (2) recessive genes.
When a cat has at least one dominant gene, it will show that gene expression. The cat will only show the recessive version if they got one from each parent. If a cat gets only one of the recessive genes, the dominant one will always show.
| Gene Type | How it looks on the cat | Eye colour or other notes | |
| WD | Dominant | The cat is all white | This cat has one (1) or two (2) blue eyes. The cat with two blue eyes in usually deaf. |
| WS | Dominant | The cat can be 50 – 100 percent white. | Common eye colour is yellow or green |
| w | Recessive | No white | No white spots or patches. |
| wg | Recessive | Birman type gloving | Paws and feet have gloves and socks. |
Examples of how the white genes look and work
Note the blue eye and the yellow eye of the foster kitten below. The yellow eye shows the cat is carrying the WS gene and the blue eye shows the WD gene . This means that this kitten carries both dominant gene types. If you look at the table above, a cat with two (2) blue eyes will be deaf. Being that there is only one WD gene (one blue eye) and one WS gene (one yellow eye), the cat will not be deaf
Foster Fail Liam carries WS as he is 99 percent white (black patch in his head) and he has yellow eyes.
Foster kitten Mav is an example of cat with WS. He has white spotting on his legs and face.
Next time we will look at the sex-linked orange gene.