Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dog breeds/Breed grouping

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Contents 1 Review Spaniel article 2 Breeds by countries 3 Dog type subcategories? 4 Shih Tzu question 5 How about a genetic basis of categorization?

[edit] Review Spaniel article

For anyone interested, I just put up an article on Spaniels that gives some background on what a spaniel is and then lists breeds that are probably classifiable as Spaniels. If anyone knows more about what makes a spaniel and what doesn't (and it's not just whethe the name includes the word "spaniel" ;-) ), I'd be delighted if you'd review the article and even add more info. Elf 17:42, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Breeds by countries

I have thought from time to time about whether a list of breeds by country would be of interest to the general public. I think it would be, actually. I haven't done anything about it because it would be so hard to do. For example, the various serbian/balkan dogs--where would you put them without upsetting someone? "Balkans" isn't really the name of a country, it's a region. Likewise with Bichons--"Mediterranean area" would have to be the country of origin, esp. since there are some citations of origins in France or Spain or Italy--or would we list it in all places just to be safe?

And would you use the *current* country name or the name at the estimated time of origin? We could go by the FCI's country selections whenever a breed is recognized by them, but there are whole trainloads of dogs not recognized by the FCI. In other words, it would be a hard list to come up with, but it might be interesting.

I'm also not sure what the article name would be--perhaps we could do it by having a different Category for each country (sort of like there are for Writers by Country and such)--and, heck, surely there have got to be getting on close to 1000 breeds out there, so some of the categories might be lightly populated, but others would be quite full. Just sort of thinking out loud now, and it might also addresss some of what Gangleri's trying to do, too. Elf | Talk 05:48, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Personaly I think searching for dogs by countries / regions could be done having both categories for countries where more then n dogs come from and a list where the others are listed and the categories mentioned. This keeps the list small enough. It is also a good starting point to check for dogs in Wikipedias for that language.

Akita Inu could be in Category:Japan same as Icelandic Sheepdog is in Category:Iceland. If other people decide about the category system for animals from that country they can move them. Regards Gangleri 12:35, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)

I actually started this in October; meant to speak to it but maybe I never did? Just did a quick check and I have three lists written, List of Spanish, Japanese and Korean dog breeds. I started with those because it was clear that there were breeds developed in those countries but without worldwide recognition. Quill 23:25, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dog type subcategories?

Hey, since we don't already have enough to work on in the dog project to keep us busy (we call this "humor"), it occurred to me as I work slowly through every dingdang existing breed article fixing the AKC link and changing stub to dog-stub and similar boring cleanup--we currently have about 500 breeds in List of dog breeds, about 250 of which already have stubs or articles. When you go to Category:Dog breeds, it's almost overwhelming already. I'm starting to think that having subcategories for the different types (in addition to listing them in the main category) would be very helpful for navigating the various breeds and also for us to identify breeds that haven't yet been classified into the various articles such as scent hounds, terriers, and so on.

I'm willing to start tacking in these subcategories as I go (sigh--a few dozen articles to redo, as I've only managed to make it through A, B, and C so far), but I'd like to work out what they really ought to be first. NOTE that many breeds will be members of multiple subcategories, if they're used for hunting and herding, say. The question is how far to break down the categories?

Here are how the various main (English-language) kennel clubs break down the breeds:

FCI	AKC	KC	ANKC	CKC	NZKC	UKC
Sheepdogs and Cattle Dogs (except Swiss Cattle Dogs)	Herding	Pastoral	Working	Herding		Herding
Pinscher and Schanuzer - Molossoid breeds - Swiss Mountain and Cattle Dogs and other breeds	Working	Working ? Utility?	Utility	Working? Nonsporting?		Guardian
Terriers	Terrier	Terrier	Terrier	Terrier		Terrier
Dachshunds
Spitz and primitive types	Nonsporting		Nonsporting
Scenthounds and related breeds	Hound	Hound	Hound	Hound		Scenthounds
Sighthounds						Sighthounds and Pariahs
Pointing Dogs	Sporting	Gundog	Gundogs	Sporting		Gundogs
Retrievers - Flushing Dogs - Water Dogs
Companion and Toy Dogs	Toy	Toy	Toy	Toy		Companion
	Miscellaneous			Misc.
						Northern

You can see that it's a mishmash and impossible to draw clear lines. So these might be starting points (terriers and Toys seem to be the general category most agree on--although what dogs are therein are different!). But if these are starting points, we're back to discussing what exactly ARE the subcategories we want, to be able to accommodate all breeds? For exampe, to start with:

• Category:Scent hounds (I think that means that we do NOT need a Category:Hounds?)
• Category:Sight hounds
• category:Gun dogs--and should we subdivide into Category:Spaniels, Category:Pointers,Category:Water dogs, Category:Retrievers?
• Category:Hunting dogs (and should this have all individual breeds in it that also fall into the preceding categories or simply be a holder for the preceding subcategories?)

And does even that cover all the hunting groupings we could want?

Just starting to think--and it hurts my brain and I'm out of time. So... initial thoughts? Elf | Talk 22:46, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have to think about this Elf. My first thought is that I like your idea; if I understand correctly there will be a lot of cross-referencing. The policy in some other projects is only to put articles into the most specific category, which I don't like, because a) invariably people can't find things b)how does one know all the categories that exist and therefore which one to use c)what do you do with 'crossover' topics. Lotta work ahead.

Quill 00:01, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The ones that really worry me are those that are in different groups in different countries - toy vs utility/non-sporting for the Shih Tzu, for example. There are also a lot that would not be in any category if we used the lists of the major breed associations (only 200 or so breeds in the AKC for example). The FCI is the most inclusive with around 340 or so breeds, and also has the advantage of having a classification system different enough from the others to cause minimal confusion. For those not in one of the FCI categories, we have two choices: an "unclassified" category, or try to fit them in to one of the categories ourselves (something that the general confusion in systems shows us is not a simple thing!). There would still be issues with using the FCI groups - looking at Shih Tzu again; it would be in "Companion and Toy Dogs" as it is for the AKC, even though it is utility/non-sporting elsewhere. Another alternaitv4e would be to use multiple categories AKC-Toy, CKC-Toy etc. I'm not sure I like this option, which would result in at up to six categories per article and duplicate information in the table. So those are some initial thoughts from me, but no conclusions at all. There is a lot to consider here :) -- sannse (talk) 00:28, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually I think "nonsporting", "utility", and "miscellaneous" are pointless categories as far as wikipedia is concerned; they're inventions of the various breed clubs. I think I was creating the preceding table to sort of show that we need to come up with categories that make sense in the real world; we don't have to group them into an arbitrary 7 or 8 groups because we don't have to organize dog shows & best of group & such around them. So we can have as many as we want--within what one's brain can grasp. So we might actually start with some of the article titles as listed in Category:Dog types, hence:

• Bird dog (or is that the same as gun dog?...)
• gun dog
• pointer
• spaniel
• retriever
• sighthound
• scenthound
• hunting dog (see Q above about subsubcategories)
• Companion dog (Hmmm, this feels somewhat like a noncategory, too--aren't all dogs potentially companion dogs? I think I would NOT include this as a subcategory)
• Toy dog (question--would all toy dogs also go into companion dog category if we keep that one?)
• Terrier
• Pastoral dogs (rather than trying to break into Herding vs. Livestock Guardian? or is "pastoral" too obscure and it would be better to have 2 categories?)
• Mastiffs
• Spitz
• Northern (or sled dog? and/or are spitz and Northern the same thing?)
• Working dog misc? (OK, I see the argument for "Utility"--youse gotcher carting dogs, guarding dogs, carriage dogs...)
• OK, maybe Unclassified, too, to cover anything else--keeps us away from all the categories of the various breed clubs.

Elf | Talk 03:00, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I started on this a bit with Category:Scent hounds and Category:Sight hounds. While I was at it, I added the parent Category:Hounds with scent and sight hounds as subcategories of that; this way, everyone can see how the subsubcategories idea looks. I like the subsub categories idea a lot. More categorization is better than less, right? :) (well, until you get to overcategorization) It's easier to see the groupings and gives people more information. Of course, If people decide that they don't like this idea, I'll be more than happy to go back and remove the main hounds category. I'm going to stop for now until I hear people comment more on subsub categories. - Trysha 07:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Ooops, I just commented on this at Category Talk:Hounds; subcategories are great but I think that therefore dogs should be in only one of the categories, not both Hounds and scent/sight hounds. Elf | Talk 16:25, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Shih Tzu question

Moved anon question to Talk:Shih Tzu. Elf | Talk 20:44, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How about a genetic basis of categorization?

Since modern science asserts that DNA underlies all natural (and unnatural) selection, why not base a dog breed grouping scheme on genetic info. After all, it was the Victorians who were obsessed with Linnaeus and categorizing everything based on appearances (since they didn't know about DNA).

Some insightful research has been done at the National Human Geneome Research Institute. It is analyzing the genes of the various dog breeds. Since the research is still is its infancy, there are many breeds excluded. Also, the research only reveals which breeds are very similar, and those that are very different. There is a large grey area in between. (It's like being taught a history that begins at the earth's beginning, then skips to the last couple of years -- but doesn't reveal anything about the interveneing years.) But there will continue to be research, and there will continue to be more clarity revealed.

For example, it shows that the Basenji split off quite early, as did the Eastern-breeds (Chow, Shiba Inu, Shar Pei, etc). And it shows that the Belgian Sheepdog and the Belgian Tervuren are essentially the same breed.

Here is a rough map (look on page 21 of the pdf file) of dog breeds, as calculated by the Canine Genomic Research At NHGRI. You will note, quite reasonably, that German Shepherds are more closely related to Mastiffs than to other "herding dogs." In fact, the old taxonomy of "working dogs" and "toy dogs" and the like is a false construct. The dogs are organized by genetic origin. And though the relation between very similar and very dissimilar dog breeds is currently understood, it would be fortituous to base a Wiki evolving document on the evolving forefront of our scientific understanding of dog breeds.

68.15.221.177 04:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)Garrett