Talk:Dog

Template:WikiProject Dogs Collaboration

Work

Under the heading Work, the list of main working breeds is missing some very key working breeds, including the Belgian Malinois, German Shepherd Dog, Labrador Retriever, and Border Collie. I believe these breeds should be included given their prominent use in herding, military/police work, search and rescue and service work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Workingk9 (talk • contribs) 18:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that they should be included, but there is already a rather large list of working dogs. Maybe the list should be modified somehow? RoseSoul 04:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by RoseSoul (talk • contribs)

Leonberger has to be on the list if Pir. and Newf. are there. Leo = P + N + St.B. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.156.63.59 (talk) 22:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Dog News!

You may not have a subscription to Science News, but I do and I think it's ok if I quote the just one line or two of this: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57390/title/Who_reined_the_dogs_in

"The largest-ever genetic family tree of dogs and wolves traces dogs’ domestic origin to the region, an international group of researchers reports online March 17 in Nature."

You really should check it out, but what you really need is someone with a subscription to Nature and the expertise to summarize it here. I’ll give you my reading, for what it’s worth:

We now know that most, but not all, come from the Middle East or Europe; that for the most part the old genetic evidence that indicated they might have come from China, they have enough to say now that that was wrong. East Asian dog breeds are not older, as we thought, as this article says.

This doesn't mean the search for the first dog is over, but it narrows it down a bit. The way I see it, it makes sense that the they are more primitive, East Asian breeds and dingoes, because they’re younger, not older. See, they evolved recently, so they haven't had time to come as far away from the proto-wolf-dog as, for example, my Spaniel Casey, at least in part. That’s how I make sense of it in my mind, anyway.

The old work was done on mitochondrial DNA only, as this article says. This new stuff is on DNA scattered across the whole genome, so is clearer, and it jives better with the archeological evidence in the article. The article is presenting them as contradictory, East Asia from the mDNA, West Asia/Europe for the archeological. This will help the article harmonize that, it seems to me. Asian breeds aren't as genetically diverse and have a more recent common ancestor, is what the article seems to say, so that means the articles about the Inus, Chinese Shar Pei, and chow chow, etc., as well as those that fall into the category of Canis lupus dingo; the Telomian, Borneo dog, the Australian Dingo, New Guinea Singing Dog, etc, those we think of as less domesticated; it seems like they are primitive because they were still interbreeding with Chinese wolves, still intermediate Wolf/dog forms, when they were genetically isolated as breeds or varieties or what have you, landraces maybe.

“It makes sense to me that the earliest domestic dogs would breed with wolves when the distribution of the two overlapped, which is what probably happened in East Asia,”

It warns that this not only does ‘’’not’’’ mean that they've found the exact moment of domestication, but reason dictates there's a limit to how precise we're ever going to get to a very exact date because:

“It was probably a pretty fluid interchange for hundreds or thousands of years between protodogs and wolves,”

The new tree, I can’t see it in Nature, but as I understand the way this article describes it, it can help many articles across the Dog project. They say it shows, for example, that the basic dog types, terriers and hounds and shepherds and such, are being shown to be real genetic realities. They aren't just dogs that were created more than once from different stock. They have much more detail about this in the Nature (journal) article than we'd previously known, if someone has a subscription to Nature can see the new, more detailed, dog family tree. So it doesn't jive perfectly with the American Kennel Club and so on's "taxonomies" of dog, but it does confirm much of it as genetic, not just on job or physical features, the article says. Chrisrus (talk) 04:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

An ass is a pack animal.

Dogs are carnivores whose wolf ancestors lived in packs. The statement: "Dogs are pack animals..." should be reworded. The reference to the former use of dogs as pack animals by Apaches and Navajo does not make the dog a pack animal any more than strapping a harness on a house cat and letting it carry a day's ration of water and cat food while one drags it about on a leash makes a house cat a pack animal. --Fartherred (talk) 11:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Good work! I checked and we have an article pack animal and another called pack hunter. The latter describes the nature of dogs. The term "pack animal" appears to be being misused by this article. Chrisrus (talk) 13:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Good work again! But could it be better? We could pipe them through a redirect using a different term to the article "pack hunter" if another term had a more accurate effect on the reader. You see, I worry about the effect on the reader of the term "pack hunter" because they do lots more than just hunt in packs. They live in packs pretty much all the time, and that's not clear from this wording, which just says "hunter". Do we have an article about animals that live in packs, as opposed to herds? What about Pack (canine)? We wouldn't want to imply that only Canids can live in packs. We don't know what else Velosoraptors did in packs besides hunt, for example, or whether any other pack hunters can also be said to be pack do-everything-else-ers, if you will. Chrisrus (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

i believe you are all asses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blaira03 (talk • contribs) 01:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Origins of man's best friend

The origins of the phrase "man's best friend" is discussed at Old Drum. Some mention should probably be here -- especially since the phrase is used twice including one toward the lead. Americasroof (talk) 19:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

SKYLOS

Skylos = Skilled, Skill = Ability O A'dis Eskileusthi, Doulevo san skilos Skyladiko, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.84.55.149 (talk) 22:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

SKYLOS

Skylos = Skilled, Skill = Ability O A'dis Eskileusthi, Doulevo san skilos Skyladiko, Skyvala, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.84.55.149 (talk) 22:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Small edit made - anybody disagree?

I edited the following sentence in the intro to the article from:

"This versatility, more than almost any other known animal, has given them the nickname "Man's best friend" in the western world."

to:

This versatility, more than probably any other known animal, has given them the nickname "Man's best friend" in the western world.

I think the first version implies that there is some animal with greater versatility with regards to being of value to humans, and the article doesn't suggest that.

Trolle3000 [talk] 20:52, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Whole sentence is pretty unencyclopedic. I changed it a few seconds ago. Vrinan (talk) 21:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this looks better. VQuakr (talk) 01:44, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

“Biology”

I don't really like the name for the Biology section, because most of the article deals with what I would consider to be aspects of dog biology. The two sections before Biology deal with evolution and taxonomy, which are both subfields of biology. The Biology section basically deals with a bunch of random aspects of dog biology that don't fit into any other section. I don't know what else to call this section, but the current name just seems odd. Any thoughts? Is it just me? --MYCETEAE - talk 07:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting observation, MYCETEAE. For grins, I went and looked at a couple of other like pages, i.e. Cat, Rabbit, Horse, Bird, and none has a Biology section. I like the Cat page breakdown. Maybe this could be reworked similarly? Bob98133 (talk) 13:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Phylum Error

Do dogs belong to the chordata phylum, because the chordata phylum consists of animal who have a notochord and lose them later on in life or vice versa, I think dogs belong to the Phylum Vertebratae because they have the notochord(Vertebreal Column actuall) throughout their life, I am just a ninth grade student and I am not exactly sure and i would like to know Thank You —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.229.235.38 (talk) 18:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Cwa1974, 18 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Please change "John Katz" to "Jon Katz" (in both the text and the reference) because that's how he spells his name. (see http://www.amazon.com/New-Work-Dogs-Tending-Family/dp/0375508147 for verification). Thanks! Cwa1974 (talk) 01:49, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 02:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Picture of the dog chewing on the pig foot

the dog is chewing on the pig foot not eating it