Talk:List of dog breeds/Archive 1

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OK, with all those changes I think I ought to comment. All these breeds are recognised by one or more of: the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, the American Kennel Club, the Australian National Kennel Council, the Canadian Kennel Club, the Kennel Club (UK) or the New Zealand Kennel Club. I've listed the name most commonly used by those organisations. Where only the FCI recognises the breed (and so its not clear if the English name is commonly used), I did a Google to find the most commonly used version on English language pages. Which is why we have "Greek Harehound" but "Deutsche Bracke".

I've also checked the capitalisation of the names. In some cases "terrier", "hound" and so on are part of the breed name and so are capitalised. I used the same checks as above to decide whether it was part of the name or not. If not, I didn't include it in the name listed here ("Azawakh" rather than "Azawakh Hound" and "Maltese" rather than "Maltese terrier" etc.)

I'm not sure what to do about listing alternative names. Should we have something like:

or:

or:

I don't like the last option myself, It would make it look as though there are more breeds than there are.

Including variations would make the list very long, but perhaps more useful. It's possibly too long already, and doesn't yet include unrecognised breeds. Maybe it needs splitting already. Any advice or opinions welcome! -- sannse 20:39 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

What about making a genealogical tree of dog breeds? I always wanted to know how do they evolved from the wolf. What are the more primitive breeds? Do all terriers share a common ancestor? And... is it possible to make such a tree? Or is a megalomaniac job? Muriel Gottrop

Personally I wouldn't know where to start! I guess you could try and write some sort of tree, but the origin of many of the breeds isn't clear. And others are crosses of several breeds. But still, if you want to try.... ;) -- sannse 16:37 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dog breeds/General

Adding new breeds

What about adding breeds to the list? I'm new here, obviously, so thought probably I should ask before doing something like that. There are a lot of rare breeds around these days that are outside the AKC/CKC/FCI orbit: Shiloh Shepherd Dog, Olde Englishe Bulldogge, Seppala Siberian Sleddog, Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog, and so on. What does Sannse think about this? Ditkoofseppala 23:34 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well it's not just down to me of course :) but here are my thoughts...
I've avoided putting these on the list so far, partly because I wanted to concentrate on the recognised breeds to start with and partly because it brings up the question: what is a breed? Many of these developing breeds could be seen as crossbreeds at this point, so should we have them as a separate list or on the "dog breeds" page?
At this point, I think my preferred solution is to list them all together and have an introductory paragraph explaining that not all the breeds listed can be considered purebred, then we can discuss individual issues on the article pages. That will reduce problems of which list a particular breed should be on and give us the most complete list possible. We could also have a separate list of developing dog breeds if someone is interested in the subject in the future (without removing them from the main list).
How does that sound? I think it will give us the most complete list while avoiding controversy (well, as much as is possible round here anyway ;) -- sannse 08:54 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The whole concept of "purebred" becomes quite a can of worms if you examine it closely, that's the problem. AKC, CKC and other big umbrella registries have few if any real controls on genetic input to their breeds, and there's a lot of cheating! Racing Greyhound Club of Australia instituted mandatory DNA microsatellite testing for parentage verification a few years ago, and found that most of their pedigrees were worthless.

In addition, there's a growing realisation that the rigidly closed stud books — in which breeding has taken place from a handful of founders (like, six or a dozen dogs in some instances) over sixty to a hundred years without fresh genetic input — are a genetic disaster for the dogs. They talk about the "genetic crisis in purebred dogs" — there sure is one, and it's all due to the closed stud book system. A gene pool is like a bank account — you can't go on making withdrawals forever without ever making a deposit. :) The "withdrawals" are automatic through inbreeding/selection and genetic drift, but the closed-studbook "breed purity" system forbids new deposits!

Rather than support the dinosaurs with their racist breed-purity fetish, I'd rather see us go with the spreading knowledge of population genetics and not penalise the newer breeds that ARE enjoying a little big of fresh genetic material by stigmatising them as "crossbreeds".

Would it be possible to make the distinction on another less judgmental level, refusing to open the "defining purebred" can of worms, and just classifying breeds as "traditional breeds," "new breeds," and "rare breeds," or something of that nature? The energy and interest in new and rare breeds these days often far exceeds what's found in the traditional breeds handled by the big umbrella registries. AKC and CKC have been forced to recognise this by adding quite a number of minority or rare breeds to their own rosters in recent years.

I agree with your overall approach of listing all together and discussing the issues in individual articles, but think maybe it would be fairer to say that some breeds are popular breeds with huge populations, some breeds are traditional breeds with century-long breeding history as registered breeds, some breeds are rare breeds with their own registries, and some breeds are new breeds that haven't been around as registered breeds for long and may still be in their developmental stages. Point being that "purebred" and "crossbreed," far from avoiding controversy, are actually rather judgmental terms. How does this strike you? Ditkoofseppala 19:16 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

end of moved text

OK, so the general approach should work, but the introductory paragraph needs work. I'll have a think about how to reword it, but if you can see ways to improve it before I get there, go right ahead :) You are obviously very knowledgeable in this area.
I think it's important to remember our overall policy of neutral point of view. We need to find a wording that doesn't support the "dinosaurs" or the "new-breeders" (to make up terminology as I go along ;). I think we need to mention the concept of "purebred", but indicate the limitations and problems of this terminology - and explain that we are using a wider, more inclusive definition of the term "breed".
I'll have another look at the introductory paragraph in the morning and see how I can improve it. -- sannse 22:15 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This weekend I went to the Tendring Hundred Show and took more than forty photos of various breeds - all with my camera on the wrong setting! Forty pictures I would have been really pleased with if they weren't completely blurred :-/

I gave the Wikipedia address to some of the owners who kindly allowed me to borrow their dogs. So if any of them come across this page while looking for their pictures - that's what happened. Many thanks for your help and I'm sorry it didn't work! Regards - sannse 10:47 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Finally found time to write the Siberian Husky article. I have removed the existing photo as it *isn't* of Siberian Huskies, but probably Greenland dogs (photo was credited to NOAA, who have used Greenland dog teams in the past). Would be nice if Sannse could put one of her tables on the page. Too bad about all those photos, Sannse; I know what a dreadful feeling it is to do that! Maybe I can find a public-domain SH photo; I know of a couple places to look. Trouble with writing a new article is: if you put the links in, then you see all those holes where other new articles are then needed!!! It could turn into a geometrically-expanding task, couldn't it! But that is one beauty of the Wikipedia system -- it sure does show you what you need to do next! BTW, sorry -- I left the site to search something, was absent-minded, didn't open my search in a new window, got back and failed to realise I wasn't logged in anymore when I placed the new article -- how do you fix that??? Ditkoofseppala 22:41 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Addendum: I've been messing with the list, Sannse, putting in a few extra breeds. I'll probably do others from time to time. Also I'm putting in links to registries beyond just AKC and KC (UK). FCI serves nicely to cover Europe, so probably we don't need to link LOE (Spain) or FCC (France) and others, but Oz and Ennzed probably yes. Also major alternative registries such as UKC and Continental deserve a link. If I can keep my momentum and don't get called away to something else I'm going to try to cover some red-linked breeds. If I don't know enough about them to do a definitive article I can at least stub a few. It's fun getting things fixed up. If you want a giggle, check out the Talk page for "Sleddog" ;-) Ditkoofseppala 03:41 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is it still Jack Russell Terrier? I was watching a dog show on TV last week and they claimed that the new official name of the breed is "Parson Russell Terrier". RickK 03:50 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I wondered about that, too, as I had just noticed both names in the list. I've just done a cursory search and on AKC's website appears: "Note: The name of the Jack Russell Terrier was changed to the Parson Russell Terrier effective April 1, 2003 as requested by the Jack Russell Terrier Association of America, which was changed to the Parson Russell Terrier Association of America." No idea of why, as I didn't search it in depth. Learn something new every day . . . Ditkoofseppala 04:34 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
But you left it in the "J" position when you corrected it, Rick! (Gotcha) ;-) Ditkoofseppala 04:56 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Whoops. But then, it got reverted, anyway.  :( RickK 05:00 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Sinn Fein strikes again! Ditkoofseppala 05:05 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There are now two (or possibly three) breeds. The Parson Russell is recognised by the FCI and in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand. There is also a Jack Russell, sometimes called the Australian Jack Russell, which is recognised by Australia and New Zealand and has just been recognised by the FCI (as of May 2003). Then there are the good old-fashioned non-recognised dogs, also called Jack Russels (in the UK anyway, I'm not sure about elsewhere) that basically includes any Jack Russell-like little yappy thing. -- sannse 09:20 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

BTW - I was wrong - there are three (possibly four) breeds. I've tried to expand the Jack Russell Terrier article to explain all this -- sannse 22:25, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)