I thought pets had babies identical to either the mother or the father.
This is not what happened in my last litter. Here's a screenshot to simplify the question of "Is this normal?"

Correct me somebody if I am wrong but I believe it is. The 'saddle marking' as I will call it on the son's back is the same pattern and color as the mother. The belly and face is the same color as the father's belly and face. To me, though, it appears that the father is more of a cream than a white (might be lighting) and if that is the case there is the chance that there is a white layer underneath the cream color to make it lighter.

Ah, so you mean if there's a layer somewhere of white on the father, that could predominate on a different layer in the offspring?

Pets or kids can take on any mixture of the parents which is why breeding them is interesting. Being identical would be boring.

Sigh. Now my addiction to Sims 2 is worse today than yesterday.

Offspring identical to one parent or the other is only when breeding dogs of different sizes. Otherwise there's just as much, if not more, variation as there is with sim offspring. I do usually tend to get litters who look very similar, but they are usually different from either parent, and different from other litters from the same parent.

It depends on how the parents are made. If they're premades, they often have several layers of fur, and combining two premades can give you pretty much any combo of patterns and color that you can find on the parents. They'll usually end up with one of the base colors, though (the color the puppies or kittens get will be their base color).

If you make your own pets and use fewer layers, or use two identical parents, there will be fewer combinations, and you might even end up with a pet that looks somewhat like one of the parents.

This is getting more entrancing by the minute. I guess I know what I'll be up to for a while. You guys have really been helpful. Thank you very much!
I will be paying more attention to base coats to see what they do.
The first two cats above were fiddled around with by me in create-a-pet at the pet store, so what the layers started out with originally is anybody's guess. I do love making those longggg ears.
I've yet to get the hang of making all those layers, so I just change existing ones.

I assume that after you take them home, changing their colour is pretty much "a dye job", and their original colours are what the offspring inherit?

Like what everyone else said; and that's why I do lots of layers of colors and patterns; even if I slide them to so light you can't really see them, they are still THERE. Fur patterns, ears, etc are also random picks from each parent (as far as I can tell). EXCEPT - I have never had a "poodle" cut show up in a cross-breed (and personal complaint, that's called a show cut, it's ugly, there are 6 other common cuts I can't duplicate, and the TAIL choices are all wrong). ALSO - every time I breed a large dog and a small dog - I ONLY get little dogs.
PS and another thing: with over 300 recognized breeds, Maxis mostly made "mixed breeds", and my favorites - a dog with a long flowing coat - is impossible. And ALL dogs are too "cheeky". They just did not take time with this idea. And it looks like something that can't be hacked...

Don´t give up hope yet. My first try was between a large female (CAS made) and a small male (stray) and they gave me a large dog.
Actually he is a male clone of the mother´s, right down to the character points (I thought of the Brandi Broke-case first, but the father is correctly linked to the cub).

You can get a big dog, as I understand it, if you breed a big bitch to a toy dog. I haven't tried it.

I love the way in the sims 2 how the pets breeding works. In sims 3 say you breed two pugs together you could end up with offspring that look nothing like a pug! Let alone what colours the parents have.

I hope not. I've had to change a couple of dogs bought through the phone after the puppies turned into something I didn't want and I wouldn't want offspring to revert to the original.

Sims 2 genetics there is nothing like it in any game anywhere I so wish all games would pick this up!