This is a subpage of WikiProject Dogs that was created by moving the discussion originally started at WT:WikiProject Dogs#List of 100 dog "breeds" in need of review/reclassification/deletion. For discussions about any of the topics on this subpage, go to this subpage's talk/discussion page.
List of 100 dog "breeds" in need of review/reclassification/deletion
Campeiro Bulldog- rewritten with only a single secondary source, likely candidate for merger somewhere if another secondary source cannot be found, CM 25 Mar 21
Cane Toccatore – moved to Cane Paratore and a second source added (from a very similar group of authors as the other added by William Harris), remains a very stubby stub
I agree we need to go over this stuff and weed out the chaff. However, quite a few of these are not breeds/landraces, but general types, breed groups, or working roles, and we should keep articles on them (if anything, they may provide merge-to targets). Some that pop right out are bichon, a breed group, to which Bolognese (dog) could possibly merge; coonhound, which appears to be either a type or a working role, I'm not sure; dogo (dog type) says what it is, though I'm not sure that one is a keeper; domesticated red fox doesn't belong in this list, and is clearly notable since all sorts of a high-end sourcing has been written about it for decades; husky is a breed group, and obviously notable; mongrel is a general article; pointing dog is said in its lead to be a type but is probably a breed group, and should also be covering the genetics of the behavior (I saw an interesting article back-when on how pointing and setting appear to be a kind of neural short-circuit, a mild seizure, that turned out beneficial for humans and was bred-true on purpose); sighthound is a major dog type; tracking (dog) is canine behavior and working role article. I would remove at least those from this list.
I've moved the mal-named Small Greek Domestic Dog to Kokoni (it's one that I PRODed back in 2014, and it still likely is not notable, though I did also just do a cleanup pass on it).
Tracking (dog) should move along with some other such articles to have "(dogs)" disambiguation. The "(dog)" one implies a specific dog by the disambiguated name ("Togo (dog)", etc.); in something like "tracking (dogs)" we mean "tracking, in the context of dogs" just as "cell (biology)" means "cell, in the context of biology".
Another fix: We need to move List of extinct dog breeds and Template:Extinct dog breeds to use "varieties" instead of "breeds" since much of what is listed there are not breeds but landraces, crossbreeds, dog types, and other populations that are not breeds in any encyclopedic sense; trying to equate them in readers' minds with the modern conception of standardized breeds is a common and pretty dreadful form of WP:OR on this site, and we need to hunt it down. I honestly think that's a higher priority than deleting questionably notable dog articles, other than spammy ones that are trying to market neo-breeds.
See, for example, the cleanup I just did at Kokoni, which was preposterously claiming that a breed established only a few years ago by a small club is commonly found all over Greece and has been a favorite amongst Greeks for centuries! It verged on intentionally misleading (or willfully ignorant) writing. What it really meant was that vaguely comparable landrace dogs, of quite broad ancestry but a general medium-small size range, have been in the area for a long time, primarily as pets not as working animals, and were used as foundation stock for the recently established breed). There are probably at least 50 articles with problems like this, and I would start with the ones on the extinct list, since very few of them were breeds in anything like a formal sense.
I'm finding other and more serious OR problems, but will post about that separately.
Truthfully, I really have no idea. I did much hack-work identifying them and regard that as my major contribution. I am now quickly reviewing them and: (a) badging them with breeds=yes if some reputable national kennel organisation has a standard for them (e.g. Germany) and this is placed as a Note in the breedbox with a link to the standard (in which case these are removed from this list); (b) badging the article with the Notability template if they look dubious, such as those articles based around a foreign name for a breed and then an article has been built around it (e.g. the Chinese name for Saluki!); and (c) some I am just unsure about. I assume all of those remaining on the list above should be targeted for AfD or merging into other articles. William Harristalk02:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Polish Hunting Dog – I have taken the liberty of striking the Polish Hunting Dog, I found three (admittedly scant) mentions in three books I have. I have rewritten the article with the little I had and renamed it Gończy Polski as all three sources use the Polish name exclusively. If anyone has anything else I could use to expand upon it would be appreciated. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 11:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC).[reply]
I have now reinstated and striked through the deleted dogs, which is a much better idea. The technology I used to derive this list - a huge extract, sort, and match - was not 100% accurate and so a few breeds recognised by the major kennel clubs have slipped onto the list. William Harristalk21:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Black and Tan Virginia Foxhound - I have found references to “Virginia foxhounds” in three books, all mention it as a progenitor of the Black and Tan Coonhound but state nothing else at all (none mention the “Black and Tan”).[1][2][3] What are thoughts on a merger with the Black and Tan Coonhound? Cavalryman (talk) 10:40, 2 March 2020 (UTC).[reply]
References
^Alderton, David (2000). Hounds of the World. Shrewsbury: Swan Hill Press. p. 158. ISBN1-85310-912-6.
My reticence is this may open Pandora’s box with a flood of similar articles for every country in the world. As said previously, I believe a lack of kennel club recognition does not preclude notability, if there are sources do you think List of dog breeds will suffice for the moment? I admit that list is becoming ungainly and it may be time to cull the recognition parameters and divide it into national sections, but that is discussion for that talk page. Cavalryman (talk) 02:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC).[reply]
I wouldn't do "without national recognition"; it would be a non-WP:CONCISE title, and is a PoV issue (it's not WP's job to endorse a particular national breed registry; e.g., in the US there are dozens and most of them have terrible reputations). I do agree the non-notable but sourceable ones should merge to a list as short entries; any that can't even be verified should just get WP:AFD. And quite a few of these are probably either extinct landraces for which no breed standards were ever developed, or very modern attempts to establish breeds. There are several approaches to this that seem obvious:
Keep the current tighter, notable-entries-only criteria, but permit looser articles like a List of Italian dog varieties. If there are not multiple varieties, it won't be a list, so we would not have a problem of there being one list per country of the world, since not that many countries have produced multiple dog varieties that rise to WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE level (i.e. should be covered with at least a list entry). But it would definitely result in a non-trivial number of new list articles.
Just AfD everything that isn't stand-alone notable, and effectively declare that non-notable varieties categorically also fail INDISCRIMINATE. I don't think that's actually a valid position under policy, or under operational consensus at AFD. I attempted to eliminate a cat experimental-breed article and an alleged dog variety article at AfD, and in both cases the result was "merge" (to List of experimental cat breeds in the first case, and ultimately to pachón navarro in the other).
