Talk:List of dog breeds

WikiProject Dog breeds offers a suggested format for articles on individual breeds.

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See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds/General for more info.

Russian Salon Dog picture addition

Could someone please add in the picture of the Russian Salon Dog? The file name for it is written in Russian and I can't write it out. Thank you.Malcolmlucascollins (talk) 11:22, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Not a list of dog "breeds"

This list is a list of dog names, many of which are recognized dog breeds, others are dog types or mixed breeds of unknown origin that should not be listed as a breed of dog. It is misleading and a disservice to our readers. I would appreciate some feedback with regards to moving this article to List of Dog types and official breeds. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:54, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

The purpose of these lists is unclear. If I sought a list of dog breeds then a link to the FCI breeds page is all that is needed, rather than Wikipedia editors recreating it here - and then not keeping the list maintained. Anything not on the FCI list would be a dog type - once again, why editors would want to list these is unclear, especially when there are one billion dogs on this planet with most of the types going unnamed, apart from the term "village dog". William Harristalk 21:43, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok, it can be deleted as redundant. Oh, and William - watch for sock activity - we have a few issues. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:45, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I will assume that you know how to initiate a WP:SPI or know a friendly administrator. I have just been responsible for having yet another one blocked indefinitely - the predator can quickly find themselves the prey........ William Harristalk 09:34, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't believe there is any possibility of achieving consensus to delete this, obviously a valuable page of the encyclopaedia. If there are non-breed dog types listed here (and I don't know if there are – I searched for two, Lurcher and Courser, and found neither), two possible options might be:

• move them to separate section, as has been done for horse types in our List of horse breeds, and create a redirect to it at List of dog types
• if that section turns out to be unduly large, consider splitting it out to that title.

I'm sure there are other possibilities too. A more serious problem in my view is that of systemic bias: the FCI is an international organisation, so it's reasonable to show how it classifies each breed; but on what basis did we choose to show the classification of those six kennel clubs in particular? Are they somehow more important than the kennel clubs or national dog breed authorities of the other 200-odd countries in the world? And if so, why? I suggest removing those columns from the table. I believe that the dog breed infobox may need attention for similar reasons, by the way. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Valuable page. I agree to both move to the new title and split into separate sections. Or as second choice to split in two pages creating the list of dog types--Pierpao (talk) 08:26, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

I think this page needs some serious pruning and all entries (regardless of them having a page) should be reliabily sourced as being a breed. I disagree that only breeds recognised by the FCI or a kennel club are “breeds” and all others are types, it’s a tricky distinction but probably worthy of of conversation. Three of the most helpful definitions I can find are:

• the Oxford Dictionary which defines a breed as “a stock of animals or plants within a species having a distinctive appearance and typically having been developed by deliberate selection”
• the Collins Dictionary which defines a breed as “a group of organisms within a species, esp a group of domestic animals, originated and maintained by humans and having a clearly defined set of characteristics”
• the Chambers Dictionary which defines a breed as “an artificially maintained subdivision within an animal species, especially farm livestock or pet animals, produced by domestication and selective breeding, eg Friesian cattle”

Wikipedia’s breed page has a pretty good opening sentence, defining a breed as “a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species.” Perhaps a broader conversation on the Dogs project page to delineate between breeds, types and crossbreeds is a good start point, then a good pruning of this page following that. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 02:17, 28 September 2019 (UTC).

• Justlettersandnumbers - you mentioned systemic bias and the 6 separate kennel clubs. See the list of FCI non-members here; each has an accompanying .pdf that provides the particulars. I'm not sure why the Australian NKC and New Zealand KC are shown separately on that list since they are members of FCI but it may have something to do with grouping. The FCI does not actually register dogs or distinguish purebreds except by using info they are provided - they evaluate the records submitted to them by individual breed registries world-wide. If a breed registry doesn't meet FCI's qualifications for recognition on an international scale, they are denied membership or vice versa. The FCI is neither a dog registry nor participant in the long, drawn-out process of establishing a purebred which, as you know, takes decades of lineage record keeping, evaluating/documenting DNA test results, and working closely with long-established kennel clubs whose members are reputable breeders of quality dogs and are actually the ones who provide all the information to their respective registries for recognition. I agree with William Harris in that the large numbers of dogs and list maintenance are serious issues. There was quite a bit of discussion about list maintenance when multiple categories were removed from the pedia. We already have List of dog crossbreeds, but I'm of the mind that we must be careful about letting WP be the launching pad for those groups who want recognition for a breed they are developing, or as a marketing arm for what some term as "rare breeds" when the reason they are rare is because they don't breed true. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:06, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

I screwed up the ping William Harris. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:08, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

One argument regarding "bias" is that this is the English-speaking Wikipedia and one would expect those kennel organisations situated in nations where English is the first language to be very strongly represented. A counter-argument is that we should be working towards a standard, and the FCI could possibly be that standard. Although Australia is a member of the FCI, it considers the dingo as a dog breed - there is a dingo breed standard - although the FCI does not. Similarly, there is a NZ herding dog that they recognise but the FCI does not. This topic is complex, and it appears to have attracted few editors to this discussion. As Cavalryman suggests, "Perhaps a broader conversation on the Dogs project page to delineate between breeds, types and crossbreeds is a good start point" - I fully concur. William Harristalk 22:23, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Purebreds breed true; crossbreds or mixed breeds do not. The genotypes that comprise a specific breed of dog are far more involved than just appearances. I previously included some science-based articles that explain the issues involving the misidentification of dogs based on appearances and why visual id is not a good idea, but I'll include another article from the National Canine Research Council titled Visual Breed Identification. With regards to systemic bias, I'm not quite sure how that fits into the big picture. The KC and AKC are reputable, long-established breed registries that date back to the 1800s. The AKC is the largest breed registry in the world. I find it difficult to fault them for not becoming a member of FCI, although they do have an arrangement, so things may change. I'll just toss a little thought grenade out there: homogeneity, conformity and control. Anyway, there are 2 interesting science-based articles at Nat Geo's site: Centuries of breeding have reshaped dog brains—here’s how and Build A Dog, both of which speak to breed genetics. Following is a quote from the latter:

Thousands of years later, breeders would seize on that diverse raw material when they began creating modern breeds. They tended to grab traits they desired from across multiple breeds—or tried to rapidly replicate mutations in the same one—in order to get the dog they wanted. They also favored novelty, since the more distinct a line of dogs appeared, the more likely it was to garner official recognition as a new breed. Such artificial selection tended to favor single genes with a large impact, allowing traits to be fixed more rapidly than groups of smaller-impact genes ever could.

^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:02, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Nonetheless, we classify species, subspecies, and breeds by phenotype. It is only when there is doubt that DNA is called upon. William Harristalk 01:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is true for species in the wild, but we're discussing domesticated breeds that were created by human intervention, not by natural selection. There is a stark difference. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 05:01, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Atsme, the second sentence of that quote encapsulates almost everything I despise about kennel clubs. I think we are in agreement about breeds breeding true, but they don’t need kennel club recognition for that to be the case. In many breeds we are seeing a divergence between kennel club recognised (show) specimens that are bred true to the standard and unregistered (often working) specimens, that doesn’t make the latter any less examples of that breed. The same is true of breeds that are not recognised, they can breed true to the defining characteristics of that breed without recognition. Provided we can find sufficient, credible, reliable sources for a breed then I believe it is notable as such. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 10:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC).

Just a few thoughts regarding breeds, species/subspecies per Dog type - the sections I’ve read in that article are very well-written, well-sourced and informative ^{and I see that our project's own William Harris was one of the contributors.} The section ‘’Names in English’’ helps define species/subspecies vs modern breeds. Another informative section is ‘’Other uses of the word type in dogs’’. The section ‘’Dog types and modern breeds’’ does an excellent job of making the distinction between breeds and types.

Cavalryman, while a dog breed may be verifiable without one of the official kennel clubs recognizing it as a purebred, I'm pretty sure we're on the same page as it relates to WP:GNG, the need for multiple independent RS, and compliance with NPOV, V, and NOR. I realize there is disagreement over some of the practices of long-established breed registries and/or groups of established breeders comprising grassroots kennel clubs, but they still rank high as it pertains to verification of purebreds. Some of the older breed registries offer a foundation stock service program such as the one AKC offers which is an excellent service for reputable breeders and kennel clubs seeking breed recognition. As an editor, I feel obligated to protect WP from being used as a tool for advocacies, or for promotion of an unrecognized, newly developed breed that fails verification as a purebred. In that regard, the reputable, long-established dog registries play an important role, and have held true to their breed standards. They have also maintained a centuries worth of recorded lineages and various other documentation. We must exercise caution to avoid including or citing questionable private breed registries, even if they began with good intentions as with Tom Stodghill’s American Research Foundation which basically went defunct following the deaths of the owners. Unfortunately, all the pedigree records and registrations were lost, assuming they were even kept much less well-maintained beyond anecdotal reports. Perhaps records were kept by reputable breeders and grassroots kennel clubs but again V is one of our core content policies. We also should not perpetuate the poor practices of visually misidentifying dogs because misidentification paves the way to wrongful euthanasia, flourishing puppy mills and backyard “designer breeds” and "rare breeds", some of which are nothing more than another way to monetize deformities, such as bifid noses as well as a variety of disqualifying faults. Hopefully our project members will be able to create an acceptable guideline that can be added to WP:N as well as establish some sort of guideline to help editors recognize RS vs questionable and downright unreliable sources. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:30, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I think we are in complete agreement. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 19:44, 29 September 2019 (UTC).

I would like to see this list limited to notable breeds that are recognized as such (and not just provisionally) by a major (notable) national or international registry/kennel club (not just a one-breed club). One-breed clubs that meet some "not just backyard breeders" standards are basically aggregated into FCI already. We should do pretty much the same for all "List of species breeds" pages, except probably horses: there's not an international breed recognition/registry system, and it often does come down to breed-specific organizations, though some of them are huge and are notable. We have other ways of determining horse-breed notability and list-worthiness, and there's much less tendency for random nobodies to claim that their mongrel crossbreed is a "breed", because no one in that sphere will take them seriously, unlike in dog circles).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:02, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal:Simplification of list

I propose to simplify this list to simple links to breed pages, removing the table with all of the photos, countries of origin and selected kennel club recognition parameters. My reasoning is currently the list is incredibly unwieldy.

I propose we have sections for each letter of the alphabet with breeds listed in alphabetical order in columns within each section and some select photos included for each section. In time we should see every breed cited but to start I propose we simply remove the table. Cavalryman (talk) 04:40, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Definitely! Our list of horse breeds is a lot more complicated than it needs to be, but still much more accessible than this. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, but at what point is it simplified so much it's simply duplicative of the category? We need to be mindful of WP:CLN and provide usefulness specific to the list format. Overall, I agree that this page is unnecessarily complicated. We should probably cross-compare this list, List of horse breeds, List of cat breeds, List of cattle breeds, and all the other such lists, and see which structure and which kinds of information are good to retain, and also remember that we can provide more information in sublists and keep the main list very concise. I'm not entirely sure that the List of horse breeds model is ideal, because it's not grouping them into sublists. Somewhere we probably do want thumbnails, since this is a feature that a list can provide that a category and a navbox cannot, and will be of interest to various readers. But it need not be in the top-level "List of species breeds".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers & SMcCandlish, I have simplified the list in one of my sandboxes, please have a look and let me know your thoughts. I have made a start at citing all of the entries (Bruce Fogle gets a real workout), but there remains a few unsourced entries some of which are good candidates for AfC, some just need a little research. I think the sublist idea has real merit, but most of the type articles include a list of breeds (of varying quality), additionally if we tried to split this into types I suspect it would become a real mess as various kennel clubs and authors have very ideas about types, whilst a number of the entries would not fall within the traditional types.

Also, I have cross-linked to other lists of breeds in the see also section but am wondering if some of the major types would be better. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 11:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC).

Just a quick initial reaction: (1) huge improvement; (2) still overloaded with images; (3) for the refs, perhaps consider sacrificing page numbers and using {{Listref}}? Looks like that was a lot of work, thank you! Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:46, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm inclined to just repeat my previous comment, since this revision doesn't really address anything I said. :-/ It's duplicative of the category, in simply being an alphabetical listing. It isn't dividing the breeds up into types that make for good sublists (which would be where images would be useful). The images presently included are not helpful, but are just decoration for its own sake; they are not present for each breed, yet are also not connected in any way to an organizational principle like sections by type. I agree that in the top-level list article, reducing it primarily or entirely to text is the way to go, but just making it an alpha. list like the horses one isn't very useful. Both should organize the breeds into groups that are meaningful, or we might as well not have a list and just have a category. I agree with JLAN that the forest of page-number references isn't very useful. For things like topical encyclopedias written alphabetically, entry names are usually already more specific than page numbers anyway. If we wanted to keep page numbers, {{rp}} is another more concise way to do that. (It defeats both the "^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw} Source Name Here" problem, and the problem in this sandbox of a huge section of the same source being listed over and over in redundant citation lines. We should also keep in mind that breed encyclopedias are tertiary sources and some of them over-include non-breeds as "breeds" just to try to have more entries than competing breed encyclopedias. They're not terribly reliable as sources by themselves (though are better in the aggregate; a breed found in every breed encyclopedia is obviously legit, while one found only in a single work is suspect, and its presence in one doesn't establish notability). Fogle (like Desmond Morris) is a higher-reputation source than average for these things, though.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:50, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree about most breed encyclopedias, I believe those used are some of the better ones. A possible future plan is to divide the list by continent, I am really loath to attempt to go down the type path, I suspect it will lead to major conflict with various flyby special interest groups. I will work on the citations and bin the pictures. I am also considering adding a key for FCI recognition although am hesitant as it may open the floodgates to other national kennel clubs. Cavalryman (talk) 23:12, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal:List of extinct dog breeds

I propose to merge List of extinct dog breeds into this list, likely redirected to List of dog breeds#Extinct breeds and varieties. The former is an unnecessary WP:CONTENTFORK of this list. Cavalryman (talk) 13:28, 1 August 2020 (UTC).

Somehow I forgot to put merger tags on both articles, now corrected. I will not take any action for another seven days. Cavalryman (talk) 10:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC).

Just as long as it's in a separate section as you suggest, I'm in favour. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:45, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support under its own section. The arrangement would then be very similar to the lists provided on Subspecies of Canis lupus. William Harristalk 22:26, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:LISTN - it is much easier navigation for readers and that is our goal. Like: List of defunct department stores of the United States and List of department stores of the United States. Easier navigation to have a standalone list. Lightburst (talk) 16:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

As per WP:LISTN, which does not mention navigation, do you have evidence that a list of extinct dogs "has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources"? William Harristalk 22:51, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Check that and search for the word "navigation" it is quite clear about this. Dream Focus 19:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose This is screwing with a machine that works and is easy to use. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:32, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• OPPOSE Enough valid content to have its own separate list. Also the other list has pictures of the animals, so you can find something that looks interesting to click on and read about, and a column where notes can be listed about them. Dream Focus 19:46, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Putting back visual representation (picture) of each breed

Just want to propose whoever can do this to put back a picture for every Dog Breed as it was before.In this way people that are searching for a breed can find it almost instantly.Having just a list of the breeds doesn't help too much and it takes hours to check all the pages to eventually find what are you looking for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.120.251.75 (talk) 12:17, 12 September 2020 (UTC)