Talk:Free-ranging dog/Archive 1

Found WP:RS that seems to clear this problem up!
I left a message and a link to a paper for you at the talk page of the article Wild Dog. I think you will enjoy it. Thank you for your help and interest in this matter. Chrisrus (talk) 16:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, here is a contribution from that paper, in the new section, below. Feel free to edit it, and I hope, use it in the article.  There are other uses for this citation as well, I think.  Chrisrus (talk) 04:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Ecological catagorizations of
According to a report in | Mammal Review by experts from the | University of Missouri Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, the term “wild dogs” is used in scientific literature to refer to Australian dingoes and their closest relatives and hybrids in Southeast Asia and Australasia whose history of independence from humans and relationship to their environments has rendered them, while still taxonomically “domestic dogs", ecologically more wild than merely feral domesicated animals.

The term "wild dog" is contrasted with the term "Free-ranging dog" which refers to any dog which is not contained, whether it is owned or unowned, which is comesaral with human beings, a term meaning "sharing a table" and used to refer to any animals which depend on the same food sources. Free-ranging dogs are considerd Feral to the extent to which they are not comesaral with human beings, but not as profoundly changed by life apart from people as wild dogs.

Ecologists also find it important at times to distinguish between Urban free-ranging dogs and Rural free-ranging dogs, such as villiage dogs, free-ranging farm dogs, and rural feral dogs, as the ecological impact of these two groups can be quite different.

Rural free ranging dogs that rarely if ever leave a settlement are called villiage dogs and are considered neither wild nor feral, and have less impact on the surrounding ecosystem, and a different set of enviromental pressures than feral or wild dogs, or even free-ranging farm dogs. Chrisrus (talk) 17:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not think we will need separate articles on all of these concepts. Rather, we should have a single article at this common title under which all of these variations are described. bd2412  T 18:12, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

nature and scope of this article
What's your "vision" if that's the right word, for this article? Chrisrus (talk) 04:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You've answered this/are answering this as we go along. I appreciate the "nature and scope" work you do, keep it up! Chrisrus (talk) 18:18, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Links to references about feral dogs provided by Oldsingerman20 and moved here by Chrisrus
I'll just start making a list of articles I find for us to review for possible use. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 13:16, 26 May 2011 (UTC) http://www.bestfriends.org/theanimals/pdfs/dogs/feraldogs.pdf http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0821_030821_straydogs.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldsingerman20 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Consider using Google Scholar when you search, as it pretty much only returns WP:RS stuff, the highest quality.  If you just use regular Google you tend to get alot more blogs and such.  You have to hit the "more" choice at the top of the Google page to find Scholar.  Chrisrus (talk) 18:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * We could use this first one, http://www.bestfriends.org/theanimals/pdfs/dogs/feraldogs.pdf, to cite these definitions of "feral dog" and "wild dog". It uses the term "feral dog" to mean one that has never been owned or socialized to people, whereas a "stray" dog is an ex-pet that has lost its owner and is out on the streets.  They don't use the term "free-ranging", but used in this way, these terms refer to two sub-types of free-ranging dogs.
 * These definitions are important to these people because they trap free-ranging dogs and have to decide what to do with them. You can adopt out a stray pretty easily because it's used to being a pet, but in the case of feral ones, they have other special advice, as feral dogs tend to run and hide from people.  Althought they don't use the term, the word "athropophobic" describes ferals much more than strays.  If you know what you're doing, they say, you can socialize a feral dog, and he can be a fine pet, but they have advice as to how to do that, and it's not easy, but as they aren't really "wild dogs" they can be socialized.  So as you can see, this distinction between feral and stray dogs is very useful and important to these people in their work, because it makes a big difference in what they do.  I didn't check up on their credentinals, but they seem to know what they are talking about and it's much easier to read than stuff like this than other things that conforms better to WP:RS tends to be.  I don't see why we can't use it, especially if this information is not found elsewhere. They don't use the term "wild dog", but that "feral dog" links the same place as "wild dog", which is basically this page, so until that changes, Wild dog has to do the job of Feral dog.

I'll check out the other source soon. It seem to be National Geographic, which is like my favorite, so I'm looking forward to reading it. Chrisrus (talk) 04:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC) Chrisrus (talk) 15:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If you should have any need to cite fact that the terms "feral dog," "stray dog" and "wild dog" are commonly used interchangably in the major media, you could cite this NatGeo article. | http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0821_030821_straydogs.html. Nat Geo uses "feral dog" in the title, then right away calls them "wild dog" in the text, and uses the term "stray dogs". Chrisrus (talk) 15:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The main point of the article is these dogs seen as a problem. They are dangerous and distructive an a nuisance to humans, and from the point of view of empathy for the plight of the animals, their lives are seen as nasty, brutish, and short, hungry, cold/hot, thirsty, mangy, flea-bitten and full of worms an such, and so on, and talks about the groups that are trying to help them because they care about the dogs' welfare.  They catch them and sterilize them and other things then set them back on the streets.  In this context, they make none of the fine distinctions between feral and wild and stray and free-ranging and so on, and for their purposes there doesn't seem to be any pressing reason to do so that I can see.  All kinds of free-ranging dogs are called "wild dogs" or "feral dogs" in the context of discussing such broad societal problems and from the point of view. Chrisrus (talk) 16:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Title problem solved
I've moved this to the title reflecting the highest level of abstraction, which allows all of the other topics to be discussed within the context of that title. A few redirects retargeted, and the title problem is solved. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Carolinas
According to the article Carolina Dog and its citations, there was a researcher who fairly recently, the 1970s as I recall, who publishsed this paper about a special type of dog living as and looking quite like Australian Dingoes. He theorized that they may be a pre-Columbian survivor and not hybrid with dogs brought in from Euorpe and elsewhere, and should be placed in the Canis lupus dingo category. As I recall, he was less than committal about it at the time, as he was calling for further research to be done. After that, we were all waiting for the results of genetic, morphological, and field studies to confirm his theory or not, but I can't seem to find where that work has ever been finished. Have we just missed it, or have researchers taken a look at the evidence and quietly backed away? If so, that's never a good sign for any theory. Since that time, however, there has been this group of breeders who have been keeping and selling Carolina Dogs, and they say alot of things that makes you feel like you might want to buy one, but which are inconsistant with the original wild dog/dingo theory, such as them being loyal and attentive and generally people-focused and not the kind of stuff you hear from keepers of captive NGSDS or Austraian dingoes and so on, which even many generations later are still kept in zoos or zoo-like conditions and are still not good house pets. Anyway, it's not clear to me that they are wild dogs, or if so, whether they are anymore. I'm not sure what this article should say about them, if anything, as we have enough not nearly so iffy stuff to write declarative sentences about.


 * Yeah, I think I'm going to remove the Carolina Dog stuff. It's this one guy a long time ago who claimed he'd found a Canis lupus dingo in the United States, and then silence as far as I can tell, other than this Carolina Dog Breeder industry that's sprouted up, all of which don't describe something like a NGSD but rather what sounds more like a Golden Retreiver.  Also, it's aleady in the subsection of our main definition of "wild dog", Canis lupus dingo, that deals with notable proposals for new additions to the taxon, so if the reader wants to know about the possible limits of the taxon Canis lupus dingo, they can just go there and find out about the claims some experts claim to be a true taxonomic wild dog.  We're not claiming to have an exhaustive list of them here, just the classic Australian and the well-known NGSD, and the mention of "others".  We detail the others in the sub-article, anyway.  If you would like to replace the Carolina Dog into the article, please concider adding "...and possibly the Carolina Dog" after the NGSD and AusDingo, and then consider listing Java and Thailand all the other places that Laurie Corbet says he found them running around the jungle eating snakes and not getting practically any attention at all while the Carolina Dog gets it's own article and fan forum and no indication of them living or being wild nowadays anyway. Chrisrus (talk) 02:59, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Pariahs
According to the article Pariah dog, that was originally a disparaging term for the free-ranging landrace native to India. There was interest in them as they look alot like dingoes and people thought that they might be closely related, but genetic testing showed that it and others like the Canaan dog were found to be more C.l.familiaris than C.l.dingo, so the name came up in a bunch of papers as they fought that question out. In those papers, the term was used with a more neutral connotation. Next, it became a generic term for similar dogs anywhere. Then it was started to be used as a category by certain Kennel clubs, who called any primitive dogs such things as "Sptiz and pariah"-type dogs. Then there a group of people started breeding the landrace into a modern breed, confusingly called the Indian pariah dog. I hope you or someone can help straighten this, to me at least, annoyingly ambiguous term, not necessarily just at this article but also elsewhere on Wikipedia. Chrisrus (talk) 19:35, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Several times I went to Google Scholar and I for the moment have my vague recollects of each of them. If you want, we can go cite each and then we can decide what if anything to add.

Let me know if you want me to track down any citations for which of these, if you want me to, and how you want to deal with it in this article. Sometimes means "free-ranging in general", sometimes means "Indian free-ranging landrace", sometimes "any primitive dog" and sometimes the captive breed selected form them, the Indian Pariah Dog, not much used in scientific journals since (date)" or some such, and/or try to improve the confusing article Pariah dog. Chrisrus (talk) 04:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) There were these old British naturalists writing about a sad, badly-treated free-ranging dog in one of their Colonies, impliying that English dogs were quite different.
 * 2) More modern scientific journals talking about the Indian Pariah dog, an interesting free-ranging ancient landrace of South Central Asia. A very primitive dog, they thought, perhaps quite like the oldest fossil dogs.  It looks kind of like a dingo, is it Canis lupus dingo or not? Then there was published genetic testing and the answer turns out to be: ....(suspensful pause)...no!  Similarities between the dingoes and the Pariah dog must be due to something else, but what, yadda yadda.  What about the Chinese dogs, or the Canaan dogs?  I don't remember what they decided about those, but that I recall was discussed.  But it seemed to me that the term still referred to the same Indian free-ranging dog referred to either which I guess they must have turned out to be the same as at least the Chinese one, but not the same as the Southeast Asian one.  Or some such, don't put all that in the main space unless I can check it first.
 * 3) Then one of the major kennel clubs created this new category all of the dogs that I'd been talking about into one category, Pariahs, dingoes, spitz, Xoloitzcuintli, and many more, any breed that seemed primitive, whether free-ranging or not, whether related or not. It became a synonym for "primitive dog", all those kinds of dogs that are close to the oldest dog fossils.  Many of these are now recognized "breeds" and actually de facto "breeds" because they are being bred by breeders and are therefore are definately not a sub-set of "free-ranging dog" unless that defintion is expanded to mean "either free-ranging or recently so, found as a breed in the wild or on the streets in some corner of the world.
 * 4) Meanwhile, back in India, there was this pro-Indian Pariah Dog movement, sympathizers developed into fan clubs, but this took them off the streets and into breeding programs, so they weren't free-ranging anymore, but confined pets. (I wonder how the dogs felt about it, being fed regularly and safe from their enemies in the streets and such, but confined for the first time in maybe thousands or years, maybe ever, and forced into a constant stressful proximity to humans.  But I digress.  The point is, free-ranging no more, and another article has to be created for the new breed, the Indian pariah dog article, as opposed to the pariah dog article.
 * 5) Meanwhile, back in the scientific litterature, some pick up the habit for referring to all kinds of urban free-ranging dogs as "pariah dogs". Some object to this, and instead start using the term "Free-ranging dog".  "Free-ranging dog" seems to be a relatively new term, but one that was sorely needed in my opinion and also IMO a great relief.

Redirects and such
Wild dog, stray dog, and feral dog all redirect here. Feral dog is not noted in the hatnote because it has no disambiguation page of its own. bd2412 T 23:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. Keep up the good work! Chrisrus (talk) 03:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Carolina Dogs
Chrisrus, I think you made a wise decision in removing the Carolna Dog information. It was about a specific type of dingo which is well covered elsewhere just as NGSD and AU Dingo are covered elsewhere. Regarding the Carolina Dogs, however, they do still exist ihn the wild and that is where Dr. Brisbin found them initially. They, as New Guinea Singing Dogs, are behaviorally flexible, plastic, if you will. Many Carolina Dogs are kept as companion dogs(house pets or outside) again, as are New Guinea Singing Dogs.. The old myth about AU Dingoes, New Guinea Singing Dogs and Carolina Dogs belonging in zoos or sanctuaries needs to be removed from all writings. Numerous Carolina Dogs have been taken from the wild as adults and tamed. Others have been raised as puppies and are remarkably good companion dogs. NGSD make excellent companion dogs also. There are those people who advocate keeping Singing Dogs only in zoos and sanctuaries, but they are more concerned with proper brreding techniques and genetic diversity and are thinking that zoos and sanctuaries are more qualified to contribute positively to Singing Dog conservation. Oldsingerman20 (talk) 19:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I got your message about this article. I'm glad you like it.  Thanks for your help! Please see above about the references. Chrisrus (talk) 15:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

New WP:RS details definintial differences
Please look at this:. It is a book by Coppinger and Coppinger called "Dogs: a new understanding of canine origin, behavior, and evolution". It identifies two types of free-ranging dog: the "village dog," which would stop at the territorial line and not follow you down the road, and then there developed the "walking hound", which follows specific people who leave the area. It also says that the original wolf/dog split is ecologically in there with rats and seagulls and what ever else loves dumps, and "village dog" which is not as vermin so long as they kill or deter other less desirable vermin. Then they talk about "village dog" and the "neighborhood dog" are basically the same thing, just rural vs. urban. Please check it out and discuss with an eye to what we can use this citation to say. Notice how "dog" changes to "hound" when they discuss those that hunt. The houndsmen go out hunting for large vermin and some village dogs come with them. Some dogs go home after hunting a little and some stay with the hunting party and make themselves useful. This transitions to a gray area from natural to artificial selection. It also says that the impression we have in places such as the USA that free-ranging dogs are not the majority is totally wrong. There are way more free-rangers than there are confined dogs if you consider dogs in cultures such as Turkish culture. People don't normally confine their dogs as we all do, even if they are owned. Chrisrus (talk) 16:48, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

This is interesting albeit a little "iffy".. The part regarding natural selection due to those dogs that stay out to hunt is logical but that "natural selection" pertains only to village dogs that like to hunt and has no bearing on the rest of the feral or stray population. You're still going to have a portion of the overall population that simply stay by themselves and/or scavenge for a living. In fact, some tribesmen had their finest dogs killed and buried with them when they died which might defeat the whole scheme of things. It makes sense that there are more free-ranging dogs in the world overall than there are confined ones. This trend will be slow to change too. Gotta go.Oldsingerman20 (talk) 23:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, it's very convincing, please read it because maybe I'm not doing it justice. "Artificial selection" refers to intentional breeding, something that according to these researchers say doesn't happen with village dogs to any great extent, not that you'd think it would.  When they start using them to hunt, certain men get proud of their dogs and start gettingn an "ownership" thing going, which is a step needed for intentional human artificial selection/breeding.  They start getting really into the question of who's got the best dogs, competition, you know, and they get an economic motivation to have really good hunting dogs, as they can make money from farmers and such who want their "vermin" (as they see them in their culture, whatever local thing is killing the chickens and/or whatnot) removed and will pay to have the houndsman with his walking hounds come in and get rid of them.  They get prestige and status in the local hunt club, and the hunts become big social events.  So there's where the motivation to start breeding dogs (artificial selection) and certain conditions necessary for that to get started to get a foothold.  So it's not the original wild/feral "hunting for a living" dogs that get artificially selected, it's the ones that will leave the village to hunt instead of stopping at the territorial border, the ones that start getting into following the men, who eventurally lead to intential breeding.  It goes like this: 1. Wolf 2. Trashdump dog (still runs from humans) 3. Village dog (gets used to being around people) 4. "Walking hound", the "hey, where are you guys going?  Can I come along?"-type dog (wants to be with certain people) 5. "My" hunting dog/"My" human.  How can I have a better hunting dog than your dog?  It's a necessary step towards eventual intentional breeding; you can see where things are leading...someone's going to try intential breeding/artificial selection...  Give it a read, I can't explain it better than it explains itself. Chrisrus (talk) 05:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Who wrote that?
Seriously how the rating of this page can be so high is a mystery to me. The references are badly done respectively dead. The article has no real structure and should not be done this way. What is up with that "VS"? Do the author/s even question their sources? It seems like the author/s ahev no idea about taxonomy, classification, science and article writing in general. Articles like that are the reason wikipedia still has such a bad reputation.--168.224.160.14 (talk) 08:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, we don't really question the sources, we just repeat what they say. They're the experts, not us.  Please help format the references properly.  How should the article be done?  Please feel free to help. Chrisrus (talk) 11:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course it has to be you. Well, I won't help you, because I know of you. You are not trustworthy, not even close. I saw what you did to many articles and know that you will not listen. I saw your ridiculous early "Canis lupus dingo" article. You didn't go by what the source said you made stuff up and interpreted. And I also remember how that NGSD article looked when that singerman wrote it, you people are not good writers (you don't even manage to get good sources as it seems) and Wikipedia should kick you out. An if you consider that one Feral dog pdf as expert source than you really don't know what you are doing. In addition you are known beyond the borders of the english wikipedia and not in a good way. Only the most optimistic of the actual writers will still work with you.--168.224.160.14 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC).
 * I'm sorry, this page is for the discussion of article improvement, so this type of conversation is not allowed here. Also, you should use only one username, as you've been told before, and not use sockpuppets.  So I'm afraid you are in violation of WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:SOCKPUPPET, and also WP:CIVIL, and some more things, USER:Inugami-bargho.  Chrisrus (talk) 12:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

True Wild Dogs
I think an author might want to edit the "True Wild Dogs" paragraph, osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 07:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're an author, go for it. Unless... What did you have in mind?  It pretty much just comes from the scientific litterature survey.  Have I misrepresented the source? Chrisrus (talk) 14:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You have a way with wording that I'm not capable of writing. My thoughts are that since NGSD& AU Dingo especially, have been classed as C.l.d. by MSW3 we should distance our articles away from the domesticated stigma. Also, we are talking here about the wild population(sorry, no photos and only tiny bits of information) and there will soon be a break in thinking about the captive population. People are now developing an actual "domesticated" BREED of NGSD in that some people are actually breeding for specific traits and characteristics. This deliberate alteration of here-be-fore "naturally bred" NGSD will mean another task of explaining all this to the public. In essence, we are going to see: a description of the "wild population, a description of the "domesticated" captive population, as well as a description of the captive population kept as "natural" as possible for future reintroduction back into their native habitat.  For these reasons, I feel it would be fitting as well as wise to refer to AU Dingo and NGSD as Canis lupus dingo and drop any reference to "domesticated" when discussing the wild specimens.  I cannot speak for AU Dingos in this regard but I'm sure someone can.  I notice that neither the Dingo article or the NGSD article mention "domesticated.".  These are my feelings. I really think that the source you used is speaking more to village dogs and other strays, ferals, etc that were/are clearly from domesticated breedings and the text can easily be altered to a more correct form by deleting the reference to AU Dingo and NGSD as being taxonomically domesticated. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 16:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I lifted this text from the Australian Dingo article in order to show you what I mean. I think this is well written:  "Dingoes have maintained ancient characteristics that unite them, along with other primitive dogs, into a taxon named after them, Canis lupus dingo, and has separated them from the domestic dog, Canis lupus familiaris." osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I know what you mean by "distancing ourselves from the domesticated stigma", but I'll say this at the risk of possibly not addressing the point. What happened, according to a book you really should get if youhaven't already, The Dingo in Australia and in Asia by Laurie Corbett, was that the Austronesian people spread their Thai domesticated dogs with them all over island southeast Asia, way into the Pasific and back into the Indian Ocean, during their prehistoric dyaspora.  Everywhere they went or had contact, the left dogs. These dogs quickly evolved into different types depending on local conditions.  In Australia, there was probably a shipwreck and just a few dogs, maybe just one pregnant female, made it to shore.  The native Australians had never seen a dog before.  The escapees went feral so long ago that they had time to evolve into the Austrailian Dingoes.  On New Guinea, the dogs stayed around the Austroneasian villiages where those people had settled.  The original Guineans had never seen a dog before in tens of thousands of years of doglessness.
 * From what I can tell from what I have seen and figure, some of these dogs evolved into the lowland Paupaensis dogs. Others went feral and somehow made the impossible journey to the highlands, which from what I know about the topography of NG seems amazing and would have taken a long time and isolated them from the rest of the world as totally as if they were on another island.  Some of feral dogs went on to also become as wild as AusDingoes, the NGSDs.  And that's the story of the NGSD.  Dogs can radically change and evolve really quickly compared to most animals.  This is how the NGSD came to be no longer domsticated, but still taxonomically, "domestic dogs".  So they are a domesticated animal that evolved into a wild varient.  The term "domestic dog" really doesn't apply to them in the sence that they aren't really domesticated, but that's just what they call it. Chrisrus (talk) 03:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * So anyway, MSW3 says that papers written by Corbett et al have, if I remember correctly I think I can quote from the Canis lupus comments, "argued convincingly" for the separate taxon "C.l.dingo" but I wonder what they meant because I haven't read those papers. I've just read his dingo book.  In it, I do recall him theorizing that the dog may have evolved from wolves more than once, and that one of those places was southeast Asia.  Also, he speaks in places of the dingo as a sub-species separate from the dog, and suggests subspecies names for at least three that he can tell apart just by looking at the bones: the Alpine Dingo, Canis (lupus) dingo dingo, the desert dingo, Canis (lupus) dingo macdonallensis, (both of which would be reviving synonyms), and Canis (lupus) dingo cobourgensis is his coinage for the tropical dingo, because it's only found in the Cobourg Peninsula.  Then, for the Thai Dingo he studied so much, he suggests Canis (lupus) dingo siamensis would be a very apt name.  "Of course", he notes, "this would have to be accepted by the International Commission of Zoological nomenclature.  Nevertheless, if you showed Corbett some bones or some such, he'd get out the calipers and use one of these names to tell you which variety it is.  He's just so into dingoes that he needs sub-subspecies names for the different types.
 * He doesn't suggest names for the other animals he calls pure C.l.dingo on other parts of the book, including the NGSD, a name he doesn' like unless the "D" stood for "dingo". He doesn't talk about them much, though maybe because he hasn't studied them anywhere nearly as extensively as he has the other four he names, but if he did, I bet in order to keep it straight around his own lab, he'd call them Canis (lupus) dingo halstromi based on what he did reviving old taxa before.
 * Well, apparently they didn't buy his whole scheme of classification completely, but they did at least agree not to eliminate the dingo taxon from MSW3, and I'm not sure why. I guess that they felt that if Corbett and his collegues needed it to decribe them in the detail that they are capable, but at the same time they don't want to confuse people about the fact that dingoes are dogs, not wolves, and they aren't ready to go back on the whole deal of moving Canis familiaris to Canis lupus familiaris to show that the dog is for sure a domesticated wolf, even when they go back to living in a wolf-like state and reverting in their natures to wolves.  But all dogs, dingoes or otherwise, have gone through a domestication phase, even AusDingoes.  If they hadn't, they'd be wolves not dogs, and Corbett himself calls the original evolution of the dingo from wolves as a process of domestication.
 * Anyway, what I've written in this article is supposed to say that experts use the term "wild dog" only for C.l.dingoes and then also only for those C.l.dingoes that have gone past feral to wild. Please check that that is clear to the reader.  If you don't think so, please either fix it or let me know and I'll try to clarify it. Chrisrus (talk) 04:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Your paragraph says NGSD & AUD are domestic dogs. Are you real sure that taxonomically, NGSD, & AUD are considered "domestic dogs"? I don't see it. I think they're considered in between wolves and domestic dogs. Genetically they are not domestic dogs, period. It's been proven numerous times by DNA testing. C.l.d. are in a class of their own because they have evolved in a "closed and separate" environment untouched by others until the Europeans came along with their "domestic" dogs. Then Village Dogs were created as hybrids and any pure Singing Dogs who were within breeding distance were watered down by domestic blood. The only "pure" Singers who have survived have been the ones who either "headed for the hills" or were way away from people and their domestics already. That's why there are no "pure" Singers near civilization. They weren't ncessarily "driven out", rather they were watered down and their genes were absorbed by European domestic dogs. It is interesting, however, that Wilton and probably others have been able to isolate the Singer and AU Dingo without a doubt, as separate from domestic dogs. NGSD & AUD may have been domestic dogs at one time, but that in itself is debateable. Just because they're not wolves does not mean anyone ever domesticated them. Tamed maybe, domesticated no. I can buy the canine part, but not the domestic dog part. I have read MSW3 several times and find nothing in there that leads me to believe that they think NGSD and AUD or any other dingo type for that matter has anything to do with domestic dogs. So what is originally NGSD & AUD were domestic, which I doubt? This is here and now and when a person says domestic dog, they're thinking of Dachshunds and Beagles, and Pugs, and Poodles, not an ancient form of dog that some expert says was domesticated. So when you say that NGSD and UAD are domestic dogs some people are going to understand, some are going to think you're not well informed and others will violently disagree with you and others will believe you even though DNA says otherwise. My feelings. Here is the best part, Since there is now a domestic breed of NGSD being developed using human hand picked specific traits, how will this end now? I think we need to make sure in the NGSD article that people understand the article is about "wild" NGSD, not captive or domesticated ones. What do you call that, "unambiguation"? osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC) Experts see there is an exception in AUD & NGSD and that is why they went with C.l.d. taxonomically. There are several characterists found in dingo types that are not found in domestic dogs, plain and simple. Therefore, dingoes are not domestic dogs. They are up the evolutionary ladder a few thousand years. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Look here: and here:, on the upper left side of these two pages it says only one thing: "domestic dog" in brackets on both of these pages.  Now look at this: .  This is the Canis lupus page.  It says a lot under the comments, and there are many subspecies to talk about.  The germaine part is this:

"Includes the domestic dog as a subspecies, with the dingo provisionally separate--artificial variants created by domestication and selective breeding (Vilá et al., 1999; Wayne and Ostrander, 1999; Savolainen et al., 2002). Although this may stretch the subspecies concept, it retains the correct allocation of synonyms. Corbet and Hill (1992) suggested treating the domestic dog as a separate species in SE Asia. Synonyms allocated according to Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951), Mech (1974), and Hall (1981)."

The domestic dog is one subspecies, with the dingo provisionally separate; artificial varients created by domestication and selective breeding, so say these papers. This is a problem for the subspecies concept, we have two subspecies also united as one subspecies. Look at the synonyms next on the familiaris and dingo pages. All these experts are quoted in support of this allocation of subspecies, and Corbet and Hill are cited as those who argued specifically for the provisional separation of the two domestic dog species despite the fact that they are also legitimately seen as one subspecies also.

What taxonomy does is to put things in boxes or, usually, drawers, with a name on the outside. Cladistics is about the tree of life, which is like a family tree. Within the "box" of Canis lupus experts can perceive two main branches that can't be seen by taxonomy alone: the southern branch or clade, and the northern one. The southern one is the one dogs descended from. Maybe dogs evolved more than once from this clade, but current thought says the genetic evidence points to just one origin of all dogs, which was somewhere in eastern Asia, roughly China or Southest Asia. When the Australnesian people took these early dogs with them everywhere they went, it isolated the Australnesian dogs from the mainland dogs, where over some of their range they separated form the people and became wild dogs, and it's these that they call the True Wild Dogs. So the experts say that the NGSD and AusDingo are descended from the southern wolf branch in went through what Corbet calls "a process of domestication", which "has both biological and cultural elements" and then later from the C.l.dingo branch left Asia with the Australnesians and they brought them everywhere and in some of those places they went back to being wild. So it's a branching of a familiy tree that makes a whole system that is based on current taxonomy and that we have all over Wikipedia and the NGSD has a place on that system and a place on that tree and it's not ancient, it's quite recently evolved but it's primitive in some ways and highly evolved and advanced in it's one direction and very distinctive and intereesting and beautiful and important I suppose but it fits into the scheme of things and has it's story and place on the tree of life. Chrisrus (talk) 02:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

What do you consider as ancient? It's been established that NGSD and AUD were taken to AU and NG thousands of years ago. Now when I've studied human history I've always considered 4-18 thousand years as being ancient. What's your concept of "ancient"? Here's an interesting article too. I believe it's probably the most current one. http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/the-dingo-came-to-australia-from-southern-china.htm So what if Corbitt says NGSD and AUD are descended from domestic dogs? His is simply one opinion and not only that, it is not our place to decide. There re many people who believe NGSD and AUD were never domesticated by humans, only tamed. What I am objecting to is allowing for people to believe that NGSD and AUD are domestic dogs. They are not domestic dogs. They are separated fromdomestic dog in the taxonomic records and everyplace else so let's be sure it is perfectly clear to people. Saying that taxonomically they are domeestic dogs is incorrect. They are provisionally separated from domestic dog. They are not domestic dogs, period, plain and simple, without a doubt, what does it take to get it through people's heads. They are not domestic dogs. If anything, they may have once been domestic dogs but they have not for at least thousands of years, been domestic dogs. Now then, perhaps a bit about "originally descended from grey wolves as an ancient form of domesticated dog that turned wild thousands of years ago and has continued to evolve as a true wild dog." might be appropriate, but saying they are domestic dogs, conveying the impression that they are currently domestic dogs without explaining it in detail is wrong, incorrect, and misleading.. Most readers don't have a clue about what the word taxonomic even means. All they zero in on is the word "domestic." There is already now a domestic breed of Singer and most likely of AUD as well so let's be darn sure people can differentiate between "wild" Singers and wild AUD and domesticated ones. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 14:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC) osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 14:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

There are a number of articles out there in the news based on Wilton etal genetic research. This is one from Jakarta: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/dingoes-may-be-worlds-oldest-dogs/364457  osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Chrisrus, I'd like to change your wording in True Wild Dogs just a bit. If you don't agree with it, please change it back to what you think is proper. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 13:21, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Feral dogs (Globalize)
I hope to deal this eventually, but I'd like to note that feral dogs deserve far more attention than I'm getting. Americans and other westerners tend to be very fond of dogs, and this article, which focuses on terminology for dogs with only passing mentions of the problems presented reflects a very American perspective of "Oh, isn't that nifty." Feral dogs are a very serious problem in most of the world. I've learned that here in Turkey, many foreigners (at least) get bitten by dogs, and carry around sticks and/or pepper spray to protect themselves at night (I've come very close and plan to do the same). And in other parts of the world they can kill people. Not to mention the ecological problems caused by dogs in places like Australia and the Galapagos.

I think this article needs a section on problems and a section on control, and terminology should be collapsed into one section, with two others for history and distribution. I'll do this myself eventually, but I strongly suspect the changes I want to make won't be well-recieved in some quarters, so this will have to be done very well, which I don't feel like doing right now. —Quintucket (talk) 20:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think you might be surprised by our ability to be objective about dogs. Don't worry about that stuff and feel free to do as you've described. Chrisrus (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You are right that this article just talks about what these dogs are and nothing much else. I agree with you that more information about important ecological and social problems associated with these dogs would make a fine addition to the article.  I renew my invitation to you or anyone reading these words to improve this article by adding information about these problems.
 * I don't agree with your assumption that the reason for this omission in the article has anything to do with regional bias. The reason it's like this is because we had a bunch of similar terms, it started out as disambiguation pages and redirects.  We don't even have village dogs or Raccoon dogs or other dogs that are in the article.  This article evolved from a need for disambiguation, that's why it is the way it is.  It's here to at least say the minimum about the terms that redirect here.  Scroll up and read the orignal discussion and you'll see what I mean.  We didn't mean to say all important things about them, So I'm taking down the "regional bias" notice.  Feel free to replace it with a true and helpful notice such as a "needs expansion, feel free to help" notice or some other kind of true and helpful notice.  Chrisrus (talk) 04:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Very confusing, help?
I've gone through this article and it is very confusing especially the way the sections are arranged. I've briefly skimmed through the sources and found |this one (Pg:4/9) which tries to summarise it. It says:

One section currently cites to it. I was thinking why not remove all theses unnecessary sections and classify it in accordance with it, but I doubt its accuracy. Moreover, more sources to attest this would be good. Any thoughts? -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:36, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Quality
This article came into being in 2010 - i.e. 6 years ago - and remains at a quality rating of only Start class. The article is entirely based on the definitions provided by Vanak 2009 (i.e. Gompper/Uni of Missouri) and there are no secondary sources. Basically, there is no evidence that these definitions are in mainstream usage. Furthermore, some definitions provided in the article do not match those of the source cited that supposedly supports them (i.e. Vanak). Unless secondary sources can be provided, the article's quality will remain at Start class and its advice should be treated with caution. Regards, William Harris  •  WikiProject Dogs  •  talk •  10:02, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Please state simply what doubtful claims it makes. Chrisrus (talk) 07:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * In the article, True Wild Dogs includes the New Guinea Singing Dog - Vanak never said that. William Harris  •   talk •   10:50, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry for having overlooked this reply.
 * Vanak et. al. says they surveyed the literature and found experts such as Laurie Corbett use the term "wild dog" for certain dingo (taxon) dogs not just in Australia but also southeast Asia that have adapted to living not so much as domesticated or merely feral animals, but more as wild animals. While Vanak, et. al, don't mention the NGSD specifically, there are a limited number of referents that can mean, and checking their citations such as Corbett demonstrates that these include the NGSD.  Chrisrus (talk) 17:14, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on the literature search of Dwyer 2016 (Wild dogs and village dogs in New Guinea: Were they different?), then "a history of independence from humans and no longer considered domesticated" is now disputed. Every sample taken was from within a few kilometres of a village, including the original Mt Scratchly sample. It is not an Australian dingo, and my position is that unless someone has directly stated that the "NGSD is a wild dog", then Wikipedia should not purport that it is. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   21:13, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Here, Wikipedia says that Valnak et. al. found some experts using the term for them. It doesn't say whether Valnak or anyone else disagrees.  They weren't giving their opinions, this was a literature review part of the paper.  They were determining what terms were out there in use and how they are used.
 * Here, we are talking about the term "wild dog", and all the ways it's used by different experts.
 * We're saying that V. et. al. say experts don't generally use it much for true dogs, except some who use it for dingoes and NGSDs and such. He gives two examples of experts that do that.
 * The claim is some experts use the term for them. We could add that some disagree, or clarify that that is what we're saying, or both.  We can't say that no one uses the term for the NGSD because some do.  Chrisrus (talk) 01:48, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The article lists the NGSD as a "true wild dog" and cites Vanak to support that position. Vanak referred to the NGSD in the article - yes or no? (From my reading, no.) A citation exists that explicitly states that the NGSD is a wild dog - yes or no? (Not a dog "found in the wild", nor an "assumed wild dog", nor a "purported wild dog", but someone stating that it "IS" a wild dog). If yes, please cite it in the article then I will have no issue with its listing. You have undone my edit, and so I now trust that you have something that meets WP:CITE and WP:RELIABLE to base that on. Regards, William Harris  •   talk •   09:46, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * This matter has been addressed and is now closed. William Harris  •   talk •   00:15, 30 April 2016 (UTC)