When I was a bio major in college, I was taught to do punnett squares that made matching pairs. For example, if we are breeding an albino x spider, you would list AAss for the albino, and aaSs for the spider. You can skip pastel, because it doesn't come into play at all. That way the offspring show up as AaSs or Aass rather than AS or As, which could make it look like the albino and spider genes are paired on the same allele, even though they aren't.Originally Posted by Turbo Serpent
Well then in that case you need to list every single dormant allele in existance.
When doing a punnett you only list the genes of the parents. No listing of dormant genes for simplicity reasons.
I've found it easier to drop out the genes you have termed "dormant" (I'd argue the correctness of that term, but it doesn't really matter). As long as the person doing the punnett square understand that those genes are there, and they just aren't bothering to write it down, they'll probably be fine. However, someone who is struggling to understand it, or is just in the habit of doing it the more formal way, might get confused if they try to skip that step.
As long as it is done correctly, either way will yield the same results, so both showing them and not showing them can be considered correct.
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