"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between dog and man." -- Mark Twain
Welcome to WikiProject Dogs, a wikiproject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's articles relating to the family of mammals known as the Canidae and commonly referred to as "dogs", of which the domestic dog is but one of its members. Any editor can help contribute to this project by looking at the tasks listed here to find something in their interest or inquire on the talk page. Editors seeking an assessment of the quality or importance for a dog-related article should click here.
Purpose
Goals
To improve Wikipedia's coverage of dogs by creating, expanding, and maintaining articles.
To serve as the central point of dog-related article discussion.
To provide guidelines and recommendations for articles about dogs.
Scope
The scope of WikiProject Dogs includes those articles that fall within the mammal family Canidae and other articles that directly relate to dogs. The scope excludes fictional dog or dog-like characters which appear in animated films, cartoons, comics, graphic novels, movies, novels, television, and video games. The scope also excludes dog or dog-like characters which appear in art, poem, song, sculpture, folklore, legend, myth, and the supernatural. The biographies of dog artists and veterinarians are also excluded.
The Assessment department is where we assess the quality and importance of the dog-related articles.
The Gallery provides a collection of some of our best pictures.
The Collaboration department has not been active since 2015. It had been established to nominate an article for improvement each month.
The Top-importance articles department has not been active since 2006. It had been established as a place where all members could indicate which articles they thought were of top importance to the project.
Activity
New articles
Editors are encouraged to list new or substantially rewritten articles here. Any new articles that have an interesting or unusual fact in them should be suggested for the Did you know? box the Main Page.
Any editor can help contribute to this project by looking at the tasks listed below to find something in their interest.
Recent change patrolling
Members can review the recent changes list to be aware of improvements or vandalism.
Articles needing attention
Members can look at the Category:Dogs articles needing attention page that indicates the deficiencies in articles that can be improved. Articles with one or more templates questioning the content on the article page itself are placed in the category by adding "|attention=yes" to the project banner on the talk page.
Articles with issues
A list of articles in need of attention is available here.
Unreferenced biographies of living persons
This category contains biographies of living persons that lack references and/or inline citations. Where these exist, members can add sources to Unreferenced BLPs.
Stubs
Stub dog articles that would benefit from development can be found here:
Several red links exist in some dog related articles, and there are also several other pages which have been requested to be created. They can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Requested articles.
Various pages on non-notable alleged breeds, new breeds, "rare" breeds, cross-breeds, and populations of dogs (feral, etc.) keep getting deleted for lack of proper sourcing, for promotionalism, for lack of recognition by any breeder/fancier organizations. They are sometimes re-created then deleted again. If you have come to wikipedia to promote your "backyard breeder" experiment, you are making a mistake.
One recurrent, problematic pattern has been the creation of redundant articles for a particular point of view, most often duplicate pages about dog breed groups just because organization A uses a different name than organization B for the same dogs. Similarly, some duplicate articles have been created for the same breed under multiple names, or split-off articles for "breeds" that are just color varieties or other sub-breeds. Such a "PoV fork" will get merged into the more comprehensive, main article that lists the variant names for the breed group at the top of the article. The title of the article should always be the most common name in independent, reliable sources.
Recommended article structure
There currently exists an article entitled List of dog breeds, which enumerates the various recognized breeds. Breed articles that already exist and are labeled with Category:Dog breeds appear on that category page, as well.
Title: The article for each breed shall be titled based on the apparently most-common official breed name from the major registries. These names have been placed in the List of dog breeds page. (E.g., Welsh Corgi (Pembroke).) Where the major registries are evenly split on the name, or where the breed is not recognised by the major registries, the article title shall be chosen using the most commonly used name in English language sources, such as the English translation of the name used in the international Fédération Cynologique Internationale breed standard.
The article on each breed shall include the following information:
The following list is only a general suggestion, and should be re-ordered as necessary.
The {{Infobox dog breed}} template, giving basic tabular information on other names, country of origin etc. (see template below). The Weimaraner article shows this template in use.
Lead section: summary of general information about the breed, brief history, brief description.
History
Recognition by kennel clubs
Sub-breeds and variants
Characteristics
Appearance
Subcategories of the breed
Coat types and colors
Height and weight ranges
Build and proportions
Ears, tail, muzzle, etc.
Behavior (optional)
Health, including possibly--
Common medical issues
Medical distinctions from similar breeds (optional, e.g., "Unlike other giant breeds, the xxx does not generally suffer from hip dysplasia")
References: Include sources for the info that you put into the article, at least as much as you possibly can, both books & other web sites
External links (optional): Links to web sites that expand on the encyclopedic info provided by wikipedia. Generally excluded are local breed clubs (too many hundreds to try to maintain the links), commercial sites (where the ads or intent to sell something are blatant), forums and blogs (not particularly encyclopedic).
