Talk:Dog

Style

I have no clue if I am doing this right. Anyway, I am shocked at the writing style of this article. Is there no one who oversees such things at WP? Let's examine the opening:

"The domestic dog (a union of Canis lupus familiaris[3] and Canis lupus dingo[1][2]) is a subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus), a member of the Canidae family of the mammilian order "Carnivora". The term is used for both domesticated and feral varieties."

By "the term", I suppose he means "dog", however, the preceding sentence has used many terms, "domestic dog" being in bold. Obviously that term cannot refer to the feral variety. This is simply sloppy writing. Further:

"The word "dog" may also mean the male of a canine species,[4] as opposed to the word "bitch" for the female of the species"

Better: "Dog" may also refer to the male of any species of the family Canidae, with "bitch" referring to the female.

Continuing, "The present lineage of dogs was domesticated from gray wolves about 15,000 years ago.[6] Domesticated dogs have been found in Siberia and Belgium from about 33,000 years ago in two localized but separate instances of domestication. "

Doesn't anyone see that these sentences contradict each other? Was it 15,000 or 33,000? The second sentence also itself has problems. If the instances from Siberia and Belgium were localized, it follows that they were separate, so "but" makes no sense.

The rest of the article is as poor as the opening. I think this is probably a frequently visited article and is an embarrassment for WP. It should be overhauled. Colbyhawkins (talk) 14:26, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

What about cats?

I think a section about dogs vs cats should be made, considering these are both popular pets. You should compare the pros and cons of each. 64.30.122.41 (talk) 13:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it is absurd to have 2 contradictory facts on wikipedia, on the 'cats' page it is stated that dogs hear from beginning from 67hz, while on the dogs page it says 40 hz, which is actually more acute then a felines stated 44hz, which is obviously false.98.238.248.26 (talk) 00:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.247.55.49 (talk) 09:51, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Sources differ in what they say about hearing frequency ranges, among other things. Both articles should probably note that sources differ. Both articles should and do cite supporting sources (see e.g., this source -- one of the supporting sources cited by this article, which itself has something to say about differences between other sources). WP:DUE speaks to handling of cases where reliable sources have significant differences. WP:V speaks to verifiability, and to verifiability vs. perceived factualness. Other project pages have some bearing on this. See also Template:Contradict other and WP:SOFIXIT. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:38, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

"Compare the pros and cons" of dogs and cats as pets?? Pros and cons according to who? That would be a very subjective, POV list, and it has no place in an encyclopedia. It would be more appropriate in a pet-owner's or homeowner's guidebook. Boneyard90 (talk) 18:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Social intellegence

In the intellegence section it is stated that "The domestic dog has a predisposition to exhibit a social intelligence that is uncommon in the animal world." It should be considered exchanging the phrase social intellegence for social skills (which is correct anyway) as social intellegence is part of MI(Multiple intellegences)-theory which seems to be a minority view within the field of intellegnce research. The majority view seems to be that Social intellegence (along with other intellegences within MI-theory) in reality are mental skills incorrectly dubbed as intellegence although it has no psycologic conection with g (general intellegence factor).

I know it is not really important but still worth fixing. Thanks for listening.

Theory of multiple intelligences

SerioBasquos

— Preceding unsigned comment added by SergioBasquos (talk • contribs) 07:38, 22 October 2011 (UTC) 

I agree with your proposed change.P0PP4B34R732 (talk) 23:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"An Australian Shepherd-Beagle mix displaying mastery of the "sit" command" photo

Although the dog in this photo was labelled as an Australian Shepherd-Beagle mix, I actually believe this to be a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (or Toller) for short. The shape of the ears and face, the colouring and white markings, as well as the slightly longer hair on the back of the front legs are all indicative of the Toller breed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.45.14.196 (talk) 03:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

"Domestic dog"

This article begins with "domestic dog" rather than simply "dog". It then says "this term is used for both feral and pet varieties". Is this to say that feral dogs are still considered "domestic"? Seems confusing to me. Joefromrandb (talk) 13:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Your right, it is confusing. It's like a zebra is a wild horse, and an African wild dog is a wild dog. So to distinguish from these, we call the common animals "domestic horse" and "domestic dog", even when they go feral or even wild, to distinguish them from other species. So we have feral domestic dogs, truely wild "dogs" that aren't true dogs, like coyotes and such, and truely wild true dogs like dingoes that are still "domestic dogs". Whew! Chrisrus (talk) 15:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The dingo article starts by distancing them from dogs. I've replaced domesticated form to subspecies here in the dog article. I'd like to see what all think about removing the first mention of C lupus dingo from the stating sentence. I think this should be addressed in the main body of the article since there is controversy about where to place dingos, Carolina dogs, etc. Discuss please.Jobberone (talk) 05:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I like what you've done, but I'm not sure we should do exactly as you suggest. I will try to clarify based on what you've said, but the simple fact is that experts (at least MSW3) list both C.l.dingo and familiaris as subspecies, but note that Canis lupus includes "the domestic dog" as one subspecies consisting of these two taxa. That's just the way the dog is defined by mammology these days. It was simpler when wolves and dogs were separate species and the dingo was a subspecies of dog, but in my opinion, but experts don't listen to Wikipedia usersnames like me. Chrisrus (talk) 06:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you and I think we should follow MSW3 to avoid as much confusion as possible. It's already confusing enough. I'm just thinking we should move the reference to the dingo to the body of the article. I'm not certain it helps much at the start of the article esp since its a dog article. Jobberone (talk) 09:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I like very much what you did in the current version Chrisrus. I still think we should avoid Dingo in the opening statements and stick with the familiar dog. We can insert the Dingo in the body of the article and of course the scientific classification lists them as a subspecies and is right there for everyone to see as well. You cannot even get the experts to agree on exactly what the Dingo is. And of course there are 'wild' dingoes and 'domesticated' dingoes. Of course the same applies to the grey wolf with some nuances for both. Just a thought and I certainly don't feel strongly about it.Jobberone (talk) 12:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I concur; C. l. dingo should not be in the lead--it's too jarring. Pure dingos may already be extinct anyway. Speciate (talk) 15:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I could eliminate what's in the parentheses from the lead, but we can't as much as we might wish we could go back to the days when the domesticated dog was just one taxon because it has two I'm sorry that's the way it is. C.l.dingoes are dogs, too. See Subspecies of Canis lupus or Canis lupus dingo, which is not the same as the article Dingo. Chrisrus (talk) 15:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

By WP:weight, we can. It doesn't have to be in the lead, maybe just the infobox and somewhere further down. Also, the scientific consensus on dingos as a seperate subspecies is not strong. Speciate (talk) 23:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

We are putting the weight on MSW3, which is what we do on Wikipedia. If we are going to say that there is only one taxon that means domestic dog, C.l.familiaris only, and that C.l.dingoes are not also dogs, we're going to have to find some other reference of greater "weight" to use than the one we're using. If we are going to continue to use this reference, we have to faithfully report what it says. Chrisrus (talk) 00:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

We deviate from the MSW3; Brocket deer. Speciate (talk) 13:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not advocating we deviate away from normal conventions. Right now there is no reason to argue about how to classify Dingoes. My point is why even have the reference to dingoes right up front. The article is about the dog. There is a separate article about the Dingo as there should be. And I see no problem with discussing the dingo some in the article about the dog somewhere. I also am perceiving some possible confusion in the classification and how it reflects on the dog article. The dog is a subspecies of Canis lupus. The Dingo is also a subspecies of Canis lupus but the wolf, dog and dingo are different enough to be separate distinct entities. There are political and conservation nuances in discussing C lupus dingo as a domestic dog. Some of this is purely scientific arising from the fact they were a form of domesticated lupus at one time. Some comes from factions wanting to eliminate the dingo in certain areas or at least limit their impact on other domestic animal esp sheep etc. If they are considered domestic dogs then they can poison them etc. Considering them as non-dogs leads to giving them protected status and that's another issue with its own problems and solutions.

There is no complete census on exactly what the dingo is. So my point is there is no need to tie the dog together with the dingo at the beginning of the article and give the appearance they are both domesticated dogs. I think the issue is confusing enough without giving the perception dingoes are unequivocally 'just' domesticated dogs when that's just not the case.Jobberone (talk) 08:39, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

We have made substantial changes already to simplify the lead (lede). Please read it again, I hope you'll agree it's better. Dingoes are dogs, and other C.l.dingoes such as the Thai dog and such are very ordinary dogs. The citation says what the lead says and what our article Subspecies of Canis lupus says, just to name one. I will try to simplify the lead again in responce to what you're saying but we can't say that dog=C.l.familiaris when actually domestic dog = both familiaris and dingo. Just because a dog is feral or even totally wild and integrated into the ecosystem doesn't mean it's not still a dog anymore. Dingoes are dogs. Chrisrus (talk) 14:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Both the dog and dingo are subspecies of the grey wolf. Not everyone agrees that dogs=dingoes. There is certainly enough differences to make them separate subspecies. Dingoes are not classified as familiaris at this point in time. What you are saying is akin to saying Neanderthals=sapiens sapiens.Jobberone (talk) 11:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect Link

About 2/3 of the way down the page, under "Differences from wolves/Physical characteristics" it says "Further information: Wolves" but when you click on the hotlink "Wolves" you are taken to a page on an English football club, the Wolverhampton Wonderers. Can this link be fixed to direct users to a page on the animal? 69.113.201.240 (talk) 15:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixed.--Curtis Clark (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Earlier domestication events

It appears that http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022821 there was an earlier domestication of dogs prior to the last Ice Age. It seems that whenever humans entered the range of the grey wolf they dometicated them. I have adjusted the article to emphasize the point that what we have managed to uncover with DNA tests on living dogs only informs us about the present lineage of domestic dogs. Here are some notions to help guide further changes to the article;

• The idea of a domesticated dog is older than the dog itself.
• The Belgium and now Altai finds of the ealier lineage c. 35,000 ybp of domesticated wolves shows that wolves are predisposed to domestication.
• The earlier domestication happened during the last warm period, in Eurasia. It seems that people find dogs most useful in non-Ice Age climes and climates, (in other words, not Africa and not for large game animals).
• It may be that the last Ice Age wiped out the older lineage of dogs.
• As far as I know, the oldest cave painting of a dog is only 14,000 years old.

In any case, the lay media's characterization of the finds to mean that present dogs had many domestication events spread out over thousands of years is not supported. Please don't edit that into the article! Speciate (talk) 18:51, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually the current thinking is there were multiregional domestication events as early as 33,000 years ago. This would have preceded the Last Glacial Maximum. It is not thought those lineages survived the event. The genetic and morphological evidence is at times at odds so the entire picture is just not there for us to clearly understand the big picture yet. However, it's clear the wolf was domesticated as early as 33,000 years ago in Europe and Siberia, there are probably some morphological changes suggesting domestication which were not, we do not have an understanding of a transitory species between wolf and dog, and genetics and anatomy are somewhat at odds right now.

The entire section on evolution and history really needs to be rewritten and will have to be updated fairly often to stay current. Jobberone (talk) 01:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)