Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs/Archive 3

Diefenbaker (wolf)

Diefenbaker (wolf) the fictional dog from Due South is up for deletion at AFD. 132.205.99.122 (talk) 20:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

There is a current proposal to change an animal-related naming convention, which directly effects the the Manual of Style guideline, and the naming conventions policy. If you are interested, your input would be appreciated. Justin ^chat 06:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation of breed names

Please see/join the discussion at the Manual of Style. Phaunt (talk) 10:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)Archive of discussion on breed name capitalization. (There's a lot more discussion on this somewhere in the dog breeds project...) Elf | Talk 17:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Dog temperaments and inanadvisable comments

I have added fact tags to Rottweiler and Doberman Pinscher. I think care needs to be taken to avoid implying that aggression occurs only if owners fail to train them properly. It much reduces the risk, but I can see Wikipedia laying itself open to be sued be having articles written most likely by people fond of the breeds in question that avoid careful wording and referencing.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Questionable articles

There seem to be a lot of questionable article/edits coming from Bigsteeve, such as Tamaskan Wolfdog and some others. Somebody who's a bit more knowledgeable might want to look into it. Fightindaman 00:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure where to post this but there is a Lhasa poo article that is in breeds.

I don't feel it merits stand alone status. It's a xbreed, obviously one of many. Trying to legitamize xbreeds as breeds doesn't deserve encylopedic attention. Tintina 03:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Yeah, this has been an ongoing battle the years I spent on wikipedia. We did our best to keep fanciful mixes like this as simply part of a list in Poodle hybrid and change any newly created articles like Lhasa poo to redirect to the poodle hybrid page, but it's a constant battle. Also, the group has to decide regularly whether there are in fact some crosses that are so common and well-established with a good history that they need their own articles--e.g., Cockapoo, which is the only mix that I know of that has actually made it into Webster's. I'm sure there's more discussion on this topic elsewhere, probably buried somewhere in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Dog_breeds and/or the talk for the Poodle hybrids and so on. Elf | Talk 03:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• • • The page for the Dutch Shepherd Dog is wildly inaccurate and the photographs portray an offshoot of the DSD as bred in the USA. Would it not be more logical to get the Dutch Shepherd Dog Association in The Netherlands involved in this article? The descriptions and photographs as they stand do not describe nor portray the DSD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.116.158.218 (talk) 22:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Coolies vs Koolies

I'm very much confused by the articles German Coolie and Koolie - I just wanted some information about a dog breed I saw mentioned in passing. They appear to be POV forks? Some sort of war, from what I could tell on the talk pages, between the German Coolie breeders and the Australian Koolie breeders? the Koolie page seems to list German Coolie as another name for the same breed, and the German Coolie page mentions it being an Australian breed! Can someone who knows what the heck is going on here look into that? Kuronue | Talk 04:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Pit Bull Terrier and "Tomberto"

I've removed references to "Tomberto" in this article. The same user (User:Tomberto)had added it both as an alternative name and as a type of pitbull breed. Given he/she can't make up his/her mind up, I thought it appropriate to remove all references. But am I right in being suspicious of the term's use fullstop?--Peter cohen (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone please? Tomberto has been added again. I've shoved in a fact tag. Could someone who knows more please confrim whether this is for real?--Peter cohen (talk) 15:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Boston Terrier

Can we or do we need to get the article updated to be Boston Terrier (with a capital T vs small t) from Boston terrier as current. Discuss Alexkraegen (talk) 23:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Northern Inuit

I think the Northern Inuit dog page may need a bit of help. the disscusion page is getting a bit political and the article itself is looking a bit of a mess. Any help would be appreciated.--Exhaustfumes (talk) 12:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Dog breed up for AfD

The Native American Indian Dog article is up for AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Native American Indian Dog. The creator of the article who is also a breeder of this dog is looking for help in saving this article. I at first voted to keep but since changed to delete. I'm willing to change my vote if someone can bring the article up to scratch? Thought if I posted a message here the people with the necessary expertise could come and take a look at it? Cheers, Sting au Buzz Me... 13:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Tamaskan Dog - Validity?

The Tamaskan Dog article was deleted a while ago; an overwhelming majority of voters believed it wad worth deleting rather than keeping. A lot of people believed the Tamaskan breed to not exist and to be a hoax. The article is now back up; is there anything new that has come up that would back up the existence of the breed; and therefore, justifying revival of said article, or should we once again put it back up for deletion-voting? I like the idea of a Tamaskan wolf-like dog, but we can't have fake breed articles on Wikipedia... 207.12.38.107 (talk) 14:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Westminster WikiNews

Hi! I'm not a member of this project, and in fact don't even own a dog. But I am interested (and quite involved) in the whole wiki concept. So I was wondering if anyone from this project might be interested in reporting on WikiNews about the Westminster Dog Show, which is coming up in a couple weeks. If you are, head on over to the article prep page I started, leave a note on the talk page, and let's see what happens! -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Assessment

I have assessed 20 articles today in a attempt to cut down the number of unassessed articles. However, the sheer number of articles (478) will take quite awhile if one person just does it, so I am asking for help assessing them. Coaster1983 (talk) 04:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I have dropped the number of unassesessed articles down to 459. This means that I have assessed almost 40 articles in the last 6 hours. Coaster1983 (talk) 06:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The number of unassessed articles is down to 387. Coaster1983 (talk) 08:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I reached the halfway point! Only 291 articles need to be assessed for quality and importance. Coaster1983 (talk) 06:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

About dog photos on wikipedia

See my question/comment (and hopefully response) about existing dog photos here:

Wikipedia:Image_copyright_help_desk#Adding_image_categories

Elf | Talk 02:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I have started a dog photos task force; this will be ongoing, to identify any and all dog photos uploaded to Wikipedia (not commons), whether used in articles or not, and (in theory) eventually move them to Commons. Many might not be worth the effort, I dunno; but if we don't track them somehow, they just vanish into the morass of millions of unidentified & uncategorized photos on wikipedia. Take a look at the task force page & tell me what you think. Elf | Talk 19:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea, Elf. I would be happy to give you a hand when I finish assessing all of the articles. Coaster1983 (talk) 02:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, good luck with that! Elf | Talk 05:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You know, now that I've started working my way through these--my thought was to remove any photos from the album that are already in commons--but I realize that we'll have no way of knowing which photos we've already checked. Argh. We could do that by maintaining this album with all dog pictures that we ever see here on wikipedia and marking each (in the album) as being on commons or local, but the idea was to not have to maintain a gallery both here and on commons. But that still leaves us with the question of how do we know which photos someone has already looked at to be sure they're on commons? Elf | Talk 05:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

The merge proposal tag has sat on top of both WikiProject Dogs and WikiProject Dog breeds for months with almost no discussion. I am starting a long overdue discussion to solve this issue.

(I changed my opinion) I am of the opinion that the two projects should not be merged together. WikiProject Dogs covers articles related to canids and general dog articles. WikiProject Dog breeds deals with a specific subset of WikiProject Dogs which are those articles on specific dog breeds. These articles have requirements, such as an infobox, that the general canid articles do not need. Also, more than a third of the articles covered under WikiProject Dogs are dog breed articles.

What are your thoughts? Coaster1983 (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I am of the same belief as Coaster. They are related topics, but DEFINITELY not the same. Domesticated dogs are a large subsection of dogs in general, and so dog breeds are not the same and deserve their own comprehensive WikiProject, as there is so much unique material to that section. It would be lumping together too large of a subject, and I believe WP Dog Breeds is a unique and worthwhile project by itself. If they were combined, the project would just have too much information, and it would become very hard to navigate and maintain. Keep them seperate.

Mike MAP91 (talk) 19:20, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

My testament: I think we should keep this as WikiProject: Dogs. We mainly edit dog breeds but we can edit dog-walking, dog structure, dog temperament, etc. If we want a main project just for WP:DB, then we should create one, and I'd gladly be a part of it. WP:DOGS is more than just dog breeds, and there is more to a dog than its background. They should not be merged. Thank you. --Alisyn^talk 21:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I know it has only been a day, but it appears that consensus is too keep the two projects seperate. I'm hoping to get some more input. Coaster1983 (talk) 23:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

First of all, both projects should be seprate. One project focus on all species of canines, like foxes and wolves. The other one is more of dog breeds stadards or different breed health care. Think about it, Wikiproject Equines and Cats have WP whatever breeds and they are seprated. For that we have only one chocie, and that is to keep them seprated, unless someone has evidence against me.--4444hhhh (talk) 23:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

As an outsider, who has not participated in either WikiProject Dogs or WikiProject Dog breeds, here is my point of view on the merger. I would support a merger, but keep Dog breeds as a task force of Dogs. The discussion above indicates that the participants of Dog breeds want to retain a separate identity from Dogs. This is still possible, as a task force would consolidate assessment and other administrative functions of a WikiProject, while maintaining a separate sub-scope. Several WikiProjects, including Military history and Philosophy, heavily rely on task forces.

To address the comments already made above, here are points to support merging the projects:

1. From a brief overview of the articles I would assume fall within the scope of Dog breeds, all also appear to be within the scope of Dogs. All articles I think are within Dog breeds are already tagged with {{WikiProject Dogs}}. I doubt there would be any articles that would be part of Dog breeds and not Dogs. Coaster1983 said, "more than a third of the articles covered under WikiProject Dogs are dog breed articles." I'd use this as a major reason to support a merger. The Dog breeds articles seems to be a major part of the Dogs project.
2. With comparison to other WikiProjects with separate breeds projects, here's what is going on. The breeds projects (Dog breeds, Cat breeds, and Horse breeds), all started earlier than their respective oversight project (Dogs, Cats, and Equine). Once the oversight project came to be and a heirarchy was created within the WikiProject directory, doubts of whether the breeds projects started to arise. Cat breeds merged with Cats over a year ago, and there is now only one project. Equine is a new project (within the past 2 months), and there is currently discussion to potentially merge the projects. I recently became involved in this discussion and am supporting Horse breeds as a task force of Equine, similar to the situation here. There is no longer a separate WikiProject for Horse breeds, as it has been merged with Equine. It has just been reorganized as the Horse breeds task force.
3. Within one project, all aspects do not need to be exactly the same. Consider WikiProject Military history. They encompass all of United States, Japanese, and German military histories, among many others. If one project (Military history) can encompass the histories of the US, Japan, and Germany, I'd think WikiProject Dogs could have a task force of Dog breeds. The Military history project is probably much larger than Dogs would ever be.
4. You should also not weight perceived importance of a topic as relevant to this decision. Yes, domesticated dog breeds may be more "important" (or at least more popular) than the rest of articles covered within the Dogs project. However, that does not mean that the Dog breeds WikiProject is more important to have than the Dogs WikiProject.
5. Regarding ease of navigation, the Dogs project appears more organized and easier to navigate than the Dog breeds project. Combining Dog breeds with Dogs would help a potential Dog breeds task force to become easier to navigate. While Dog breeds does seem to keep articles organized in categories as part of the encyclopedia, I do not see any organizational groups to tie all of their articles together (like Category:WikiProject Dogs). There is Category:WikiProject Dog breeds, but this is empty.

I just want to let the people above know that merging the two WikiProjects does not mean that they are the same or have the same purpose. The scope of the Dog breeds project is a completely overlapping subset of the scope of the Dogs project. The Dogs project can maintain oversight of all Canine-related pages, while the Dog breeds task force could keep its focus on dog breeds. The Dog breeds project could benefit from a merger, by using a task force banner as part of {{WikiProject Dogs}}, to keep track of their pages. (For example, take what I have done with Equine and Horse breeds. Their banner, {{WPEQ}}, accepts a breeds=yes parameter. If this is set, the article will additionally be marked with a special message on the banner and is put into Category:Horse breeds task force articles. See Talk:Fouta, for an example.) I do not see any downsides to moving Dog breeds to a task force within Dogs. --Scott Alter 03:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Scott Alter, you do make a convincing argument for the merger and creation of a dog breeds task force. I like this proposal and now support it. I now realize that I was describing the same thing in my comment above. Also, it seems that the dog breeds WikiProject is not as active as it once was.

As for the {{WikiProject Dogs}} banner, I like this idea as well. I was planning on incorporating it into the banner regardless of the outcome of the merger proposal. I think that the addition of a breeds parameter should be added. Also, we might want to shorten the name of the template to {{WPDOG}} for simplicity. --Coaster1983 (talk) 07:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I will gladly assist with any of these items. Let me know if you want me to add the breeds parameter to the banner now. This can be done (and should be done), regardless of whether Dog breeds formally becomes a task force of Dogs. --Scott Alter 22:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! Go ahead and add the parameter. You can use the top picture on the right for the parameter. Also, while you are at it, there is an existing, albeit inactive, task force called Greyhound racing task force that also needs a new parameter. I would call the parameter GH racing. The image you can use is the on the bottom right.Coaster1983 (talk) 02:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I see you found the new breeds=yes and GH racing=yes parameters on {{WikiProject Dogs}}. This adds a section to the banner and places the articles into Category:Dog breeds task force articles and Category:Greyhound racing task force articles. --Scott Alter 03:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for you help! I went ahead and moved {{WikiProject Dogs}} to {{WPDOGS}} to make the syntax easier to type. Coaster1983 (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I would go along with Scott on this. As an outside editor, found in very confusing knowing where to raise issues on dog articles. Definitely merge with task force.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

As a very active early member of the dog breeds project (when there were only maybe a dozen dog-related articles of ANY kind!) and a two-plus-years fanatical contributor and main organizer and monitor (since mostly retired ;-) ), I can say that we took on anything having to do with dogs--even their wild cousins--not just the breeds. So, in fact, it was a surprise to me to find the Dogs project appear, with a great deal of overlap. I very much like the idea of merging the two and keeping the Breeds as a subtask within the project. (And I like that the photo of my little Jake, now gone for almost a year, is still being used as a project icon.) Elf | Talk 05:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Task Force Opinion I agree with the suggestion of making WP Dog Breeds a task force of WP Dogs. I believe this is the best of both sides, and I think it would work out well. I also believe both will improve because now there are two groups working on one project. Great suggestion Scott! I would have never thought of that.

Mike MAP91 (talk) 17:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• I also agree with the merge and task-force idea! --Pharaoh Hound (talk) (The Game) 20:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with the merge. Dog breed could be a taskforce.ROOSTER (talk) 14:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree although both may be about dogs one is talking about the types of dogs the other is talking about all subjects about dogs if we put it together it will result in confusion and it will be like putting a japanese fighting fish with a family of goldfish it wont work one would eat the other making a nearly empty tank Trulystand700 talk —Preceding comment was added at 03:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Since I have posted my proposal, there has only been one disagreement. To Trulystand700, I say that making breeds a task force would actually prevent confusion and create more organization. Presently, if a non-member of either dog project has a question, he or she does not know where to go. Additionally, there currently is confusion as to where to being up items specifically related to breeds. For example, the thread below about an infobox for breeds (#"Overview" template/table) really belongs at the talk page for the breeds project/task force. If members of these projects do not always hold conversations in the ideal place, how do you expect outsiders to use the correct pages? The items specifically related to the breeds (most of the templates, infobox, etc) would be kept within the breeds task force, while all general dog issues would be brought to the attention of the dogs project. Dog breeds would be added as a task force, like Greyhound racing task force and Dog photos task force, though I think the task forces should be better featured on the dogs project page.

My idea of what would happen is very simple. Basically, it is just renaming Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds to Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Dog breeds task force and changing some wording to reflect the move. This can easily be undone, so if people don't like the change, it could be easily reversed. --Scott Alter 23:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Can we go ahead with the merger? There seems to be a consensus to do so, but I am not sure. I think I have allowed enough time to pass for members from both projects to respond. I also moved up the task force section up the dogs project page.--Coaster1983 (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

As a contributor to, and watcher over, the West Highland White Terrier article here, I would support merge and taskforce. Confusion over where to post would disappear overnight, as, really, WikiProject Dogs is the only sensible place to air views on any and every subject pertaining to, well, Dogs! And, yes, I'd join the Taskforce. Ref ^(chew)(do) 23:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I just performed the merge. All of the dog breeds pages are now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Dog breeds task force. I also organized Category:WikiProject Dogs. Some pages within the Dog breeds task force can probably be moved to be directly within WikiProject Dogs. For example, I moved the templates page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Templates, since is applicable to the entire project. There are probably some other items that can be merged, but most pages are fine as they are now. --Scott Alter 05:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

FAC: Fox hunting

Fox hunting has been nominated as a Featured Article candidate. Please review it. --Una Smith (talk) 04:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Dubious article

The article on the Sulimov dog is not tagged as being in the project, and has one BBC source. I think this one needs consideration for deletion. Is it even possible for jackals and dogs to interbreed? VanTucky 02:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly. Jackals are members of the Canis genus, all of whose members appear to be capable of interbreeding. Furthermore, I see no reason to bout the veracity of the BBC source. Zetawoof_(ζ) 05:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Miniature Bull Terrier

The Miniature Bull Terrier page claims that these dogs live to their upper teens, while the page on Dogs states that Miniature Bull Terriers (among other dogs) live a relatively short life of 6-7 years. Obviously, both pages can't be correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.149.246 (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Nice catch! I have removed the unsourced statement in the Miniature Bull Terrier article. --Coaster1983 (talk) 22:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedians' dogs

Images of your dogs are now being collected here. Please contribute. I was going to make WP:DOGBOOK, modeled after WP:FACE but thought it best to restrict the gallery to my user space for now. Woof. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violation - breed standards

Some articles, e.g. English Springer Spaniel and Golden Retriever, have boxes/tables with direct quotes taken from the AKC and other organisations web pages. These are a clear copyright infringment and should be removed from all WikiProject Dogs articles in my opinion. Read WP:QUOTE, which is clear that quotes must be short and fully attributed. Read the AKC Reproduction of Online Materials Policy, which is very clear that "AKC does not permit reproduction of AKC Material for online use by others; instead AKC requires that individuals or organizations provide a link to the AKC website". Each WikiProject Dogs article already provides a direct link to the breed standard and that should be sufficient. Of course the breed standard should be described in the article but it should be paraphrased and written as a combination of the various breed standards. I quote AKC here as an example but the UK Kennel Club is equally clear on its copyright as, I'm sure, are the others. --TimTay (talk) 09:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that these boxes are on every dog article (as implied in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs#Another new template from Shawnregan, above). I'd like consensus to be reached this before more boxes are mass-added, existing boxes are mass-deleted, or the dog articles are mass-tagged. When the result of this discussion is reached, changes to the articles as a group will be made. нмŵוτнτ 14:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

As promised, I won't tag any more articles, but neither will I permit the copyvio tags to be deleted by anyone on the English Springer Spaniel article that I have tagged, as I'd appreciate the admins taking a look at it. I have removed the copyvio tag from the other three articles for now. --TimTay (talk) 14:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Admin chiming in here. You're at least partially correct, the breed standards are under copyright, however, the copyright lies with the Parent Club that writes and maintains the standard. The AKC is granted publishing rights to all versions submitted o the AKC via the contract made when registering a new breed. Either way, I have removed the infobox from English Springer Spaniel pending further discussion.

A claim could be made that some of the information (i.e. size, weight) is a mere collection of facts being reproduced and not a violation of copyright, but that's a fine line to be walking. Details like "Medium, oval, set rather well-apart, fairly deep in sockets; colour of iris harmonises with coat colour; eye rims fully pigmented and match the coat in colour; Lids tight with little or no haw showing." certainly wouldn't fall under that little escape clause.

I think the claim that these boxes are fair-use under the quotes exception is incorrect. We can put the standards in our own words and discuss differences in standards without reproducing them, hence it fails the vital test of whether or not the quotes are even necessary, must less that we're using so many in a single article.

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the issue - I'd strongly suggest removing all this info from any breed article that contains it until such time as this issue is cleared up. Shell ^babelfish 15:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

As an admin as well, Shell, I agree with you. I simply want the pages to be consistent with these boxes, whatever the "dog breed regulars" decide. However, the quotes shouldn't be on the pages. I'll begin removing them from other dog breed pages. нмŵוτнτ 15:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the swift decision. --TimTay (talk) 15:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The dog breed standard is no different from any other standard , i.e. legal description. Deviations from such description, or re-wording such is way more harmful than copyvio, not to mention that WIKI is for educational purposes. One can discuss differences between different registries' standards without actually citing all versions, but only with a true expert on the subject. Nobody else will understand what that was all about. If one needs to clarify standard other than comment what already was written, how can everybody else know for sure, that he describes the same breed of dogs? How encyclopedic is use of synonyms in this case? Long descriptions in standard-specific language are clearly a waste of space, but there is no way to re-word the basic elements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Afru (talk • contribs) 16:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as your concerns about the "standard" - Wikipedia isn't suggesting that reading our articles is the same as looking at the AKC breed standard, we're just writing an encyclopedia article about the dogs; in fact, I'm pretty sure most dog articles link to the full breed standard. The only articles which would contain information about registry differences is generally where there are major differences -- it doesn't require an expert to say that the AKC requires docking where the FCI does not -- no one's suggesting that we dive into the politics of interpreting breed standards (which would be inappropriate in these articles for many reasons). If someone needs to clarify a point about a dog, they should go to the actual breed standard or other references given, not an encyclopedia article.

Simply put, there's no argument to be made that violating copyright is acceptable. There may be an argument for using bare facts, like height, and this not violating copyright, but then we run in to another question -- which organizations breed standard do we use when supplying these facts? Shell ^babelfish 18:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Whatever happens after consensus is decided, could we agree that someone inform User:Shawnregan of the outcome as a matter of common courtesy, as the originator who has admittedly put a lot of work into them in good faith? Thanks. Ref ^(chew)(do) 20:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, the closer to the breed origination the more reliable. Breeds originated in different countries, and National breed Club for according country develops the standard for those, as well as maintains the Stud Books. In FCI countries, National breed clubs supply the standard to FCI while apply for their native breed recognition, as well as further corrections. In US, to AKC or UKC, and in England, to KC. Thus, National breed club standard in the country of origin is the first choice. Major registries usually strive to match the breed origination country standards for their native breeds, such as FCI for German and other European breeds, KC for English breeds, etc. Thus, FCI standard may be the best match for Japanese Akita, AKC standard for American Akita, and NALC for Louisiana Catahoulas. Favoring the Nat'l breed club breed standard for the country of origin of any breed (and/or the initial developer for "patented", new breeds) as a rule of thumb may prevent many pointless discussions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Afru (talk • contribs) 20:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Two issues that appear not to have been addressed:

1. Although a quote in a single breed article is clearly fair use, the ultimate reproduction of the breed standard in every article could conceivably reproduce nearly all AKC breed standards (using AKC as the one with an established usage page), and that would be hard to justify as fair use.

1. Copying from an authoritative source is far inferior to linking to it, since changes will be reflected only when someone remembers to update the Wikipedia page. Ideally the clubs and federations would have web services providing XML-tagged feeds of breed descriptions that could be incorporated real-time, but until that happens, manually copying the breed standards (and yes, I know it is copy/paste, but it is not automated) is a "stale information incident" waiting to happen.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

And either issue may interfere the leverage. Also, a possible shortcut via National breed clubs. There are always affiliated breed experts working on "illustrated comments to standards", what seems to be a clarification and simplification at a time. They do know their breeds, and actually have expirience simplifying dog standard language. --Afru (talk) 09:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Unbalanced diet discussion

I think this gives a very distorted view of dog diets: "Domestic dogs can survive healthily on a reasonable and carefully designed vegetarian diet, particularly if eggs and milk products are included. Some sources suggest that a dog fed on a strict vegetarian diet without L-carnitine may develop dilated cardiomyopathy,[42] however, L-carnitine is found in many nuts, seeds, beans, vegetables, fruits and whole grains. In the wild, dogs can survive on a vegetarian diet when animal prey is not available."

I think it shows a bias toward a small minority position of vegetarian diet. It also ignores other minority practices that may be more common. This might reflect a more mainstream view plus be more inclusive:

"Dog diets are controversial. Dogs' nutritional needs are well known. While the great majority feeds common AAFCO tested commercial chows with success, others advocate and successfully feed many other diets including premium commercial chows, home made, raw, and vegetarian. The AVMA doesn't support home made diets"

To back this, I give http://www.avma.org/press/releases/070404_homemade_diets.asp Labman, 29 Feb 08 Labman (talk) 16:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

"Males and bitches"

I've lost track of the number of times I've reverted anons changing "bitch" to "female" in Doberman Pinscher (my edit summary analogy is that no one would think of doing the same for "mare"), but within the last day, an editor changed "male" to "dog" and another editor changed it back, stating '"Male" is less confusing for people who aren't well up on dogs.' That makes sense, in a way; we don't call male horses "horses", so there's not the possibility of confusion.

But that leaves a double standard wrt "bitch". As much as I hate people changing it because (I imagine) they think it's offensive, it might be better to write about "males and females" rather than "males and bitches".

I imagine this has come up before, and I apologize for not searching the archives, but I'm hoping someone can give me some guidance.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Himalayan Sheepdog up for AfD

A heads up that the Himalayan Sheepdog article is up for AfD. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

And it looks like it's been rescued. Zetawoof_(ζ) 02:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Chihuahua "average age"

The Chihuahua page states that longevity for the breed is 8-22 years. I would like a citation, as I have never seen this. The average lifespan is closer to 8-16. I only wish these dogs lived 20, 21 or 22 years! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.97.105 (talk) 23:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think some have lived that long, but probably not most. Most of what i found on the web says between 11 and 18 years..--Ltshears (talk) 23:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)