Color-Pattern genetic basics
Hope this helps in understanding the basics
The colors:
Red (black nosed) is dominant. Chocolate, black, dilute, and cream are all recessive, therefore can be carried. You cannot get a
dominant red from 2 blacks, chocolates, dilutes, or creams being bred together. Dominant red cannot be carried it must be red
to produce red, much like dapple, brindle, and wire.
2 black and tans can produce chocolates, dilutes, and pointed creams.
However, 2 chocolates could only produce chocolates, Isabella's, e-reds (whole 'nother ball of wax :lol

, and chocolate
creams and on the rare occasion Isabella creams.
The Coats:
Longhairs can't carry smooth or wire.
Smooths can carry longhair, but cannot carry wire.
Wire can carry smooth and longhair.
Genetics is a struggle and partly because the way we use the language.
For each trait, a dog has a pair of genes, one donated by each parent.
A dominant trait is manifested if present in only one of the genes.
A recessive trait is manifested only if present in each gene of the pair.
For Coat type the Hierarchy goes like this:
(W)ire Absolutely Dominant
(S)mooth Dominant only to Long
(L)ong Recessive to Wire or Smooth
Dogs with a twin pair ( W/W, S/S, L/L ) can only offer their own coat type to any progeny.
Since (W) is absolutely dominant, a W/W dog will only produce wires irrespective of what their mate offers.
Canada, the UK and other kennel clubs dis-allow cross-breeding of Coat types.
Two W/S dogs could produce smooth puppies. Smooth is recessive only in the presence of the Wire gene.
A W/S dog and a W/L dog could produce a S/L pair of genes, in other words, a Smooth puppy.
Two W/L dogs could likewise produce longhair pups.
Wire breeders (show) have a difficult time setting a uniform and correct coat because of the issues of incomplete dominance and the
recessive nature of the other coat types.
The Patterns:
Piebald can be carried, but one parent must be brindled or dappled to have dapple or brindled puppies.
When a double dapple is bred to a solid all the pups will be dappled.
If you breed 2 piebalds together you will get all piebalds, but that is not the case with brindles and dapples.
Recessive is a gene that is only inherited from both parents. Recessive genes can be carried.
Dominant is a gene that is inherited from only one parent. Dominant genes cannot be carried.