Talk:Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever/Archive 1

Tollers aren't the only Canadian breed
I have removed the statement that "Tollers are usually noted for being the only breed originating from Canada" as the Qimmiq and the Tahltan Bear Dog have a good (if not a better) claim to Canadian origin. -- Pharaoh Hound  (talk)  12:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * And perhaps the Newfoundland and Labrador? CMacMillan 00:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Depends on whom you ask. Most people (myself included) say that the Newf is definitely Canadian, however the "Landseer" type was developed in the UK. The Lab is more debated, with some people saying that it originated in England. That's why I didn't use them as examples to argue my point, I didn't want to start a debate (I find them stressful). -- Pharaoh Hound  (talk)  12:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Conformation bias
This article is heavily angled towards the conformation or show dog world and should probably be expanded to include the dog's actual breed role. CMacMillan 00:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The article does explain the breed's traditional role: "The hunter stays hidden in a blind and sends the dog out to romp and play near the water, usually by tossing a ball or stick to be retrieved. The dog's crazy antics and white markings pique the curiosity of waterfowl, who swim over to investigate. The act of enticing or luring game to approach is known as tolling. When the birds are close, the hunter calls the dog back to the blind, then rises, putting the birds to flight, and shoots them. The Toller then retrieves any downed birds." The history section of this article is quite weak, and could be expanded more to include the breed's early years before recognition. -- Pharaoh Hound  (talk)  12:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I totally agree. The article should not just be geared towards the breeding community. Anderssr 00:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm having trouble understanding the complaint. When I created the Toller stub over three years ago the first thing I noted was the breed's unusual method of working.  That part has remained virtually unchanged.  I have two questions: 1) What more do you think should be in the article? 2) Why don't you put it there?  Instead of standing on the sidelines, why don't those who want to expand the article just add to it?  I really don't see any dispute here. The Dogfather 19:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Name
Why the hyphen in the name? Neither the CKC nor the NSDTR Club of Canada put a hyphen in this breed's name. Aikidoshi (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits
I am not opposed to the links, but you must learn proper wikipedia standards before entering them. I have reversed these edits; beware of advertising your site vs. providing informational links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.7.221.221 (talk) 18:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move per request.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever → — There is no dash in the name according to the Canadian Kennel Club and American Kennel Club. No official record available of any national kennel club recognizing a dash in the breed's name. Stoick (talk) 01:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I cannot remember what reference I used when I created the article (I think it was Fogle's Encyclopedia Of The Dog), but that would be the reason for the hyphenated name -- whatever reference I used had it down as "Duck-Tolling". So long as we don't lose any history, I think it would be fine to rename the article. The Dogfather (talk) 21:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Bad move
Just to underline how ignorant that move was, it's a hyphen, not a dash. It's going into The Signpost with a hyphen—according to the WP's guidelines—and that is that. Tony  (talk)  00:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no need to imply people are ignorant for disagreeing over this point, as you also seem to have done here. And nor are they. Also, whether people who are not necessarily expert on the precise technical terminology of punctuation refer to a "dash" or a "hyphen" is pure semantics; the point is whether the thing - however one chooses to describe it - needs to be there. WP:MOS suggests it does, and so would many other style guides - if we were talking about ordinary prose. However, the hyphenless version appears to be the common and even semi-official name of the breed, and hence is arguably a proper name that should not be refactored. Kennel Clubs as well as most dictionaries and other encyclopedias I've just spent two minutes looking at do not use the hyphen. Per WP:COMMONNAME, if not per WP:HYPHEN, there's a very strong case for following them. Also, your attempts to put in the hyphen broke several links and photos, which it has now taken two editors to finally put right.  N-HH   talk / edits  13:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Generic name?
About 40% of the books in Google book search with previews available use the generic lower-case form for the "duck-tolling retriever" part, suggesting that the term is not widely regarded as a proper name; many of the ones that use the capitalized form do so only in a heading or a list where everything is in title case, so the actual usage in sentences may be majority lower-case. So, should we move it to lower case? Or is there a wikiproject about dog breeds that has an established guideline of making dog breeds proper? Checking a few common dog breeds, I find the capitalization quite mixed in the text. Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean. Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is the breed name. For example Golden Retriever, Poodle and Labrador Retriever are capitalized. Stoick (talk) 13:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean, either. Why are breed names capitalized?  If there's a convention about that, then why is "poodle" so often not capitalized, e.g. in Poodle, and "golden retriever" in Golden Retriever?  Is Golden different from Labrador in some important way?  Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

A quick search of "dog breeds" and "proper noun" in web pages and books suggests that the most common convention is to NOT treat breed names as proper nouns. So probably we should be working in that direction, no? Dicklyon (talk) 18:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I took a look at google books and I don't see this 40% anywhere. And I can't find any such thing in ngrams. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

lifespan
Lifespan figure in the infobox should show the average/mean or a range around those values. It does not make sense to use the average for the lower figure and the 80th percentile for the upper.--Dodo bird (talk) 06:15, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Infobox dog breed life_span parameter reads: "The range in life span in years". It says nothing about average or mean but rather range. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The term "lifespan" means average length of life. It can also mean maximum length of life, but right now it is neither here nor there. "Range" just means that it should be a distribution of numbers rather than a single number. It doesn't tell us how to select the numbers. I could just as well select 1-6 years, or 0-14 years--Dodo bird (talk) 06:56, 28 June 2012 (UTC).
 * Thanks for the dictionary definition. The template doesn't agree with your interpretation. Median or mean life is not even considered in other articles from what I can see. It's usually a range of maximum life span, or life expectancy, which is what is commonly understood as the how the term is used. Please take up your request for clarification on the template's talk page. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:19, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Walter Görlitz - in that the intention of the template (and Wikipedia) was to be useful, as opposed to being comparatively useless in determining the typical life expectancy of the breed. Stoick (talk) 20:02, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the motivation for skewing the results of that survey. Are there really people out there with political agendas against specific dog breeds? The Google search results even auto-answer a search for toller life expectancy . I'm putting it back. I suppose we should dig down to find the original source of this information or any troll can just delete it. Spacexplosion[talk] 22:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you kidding me? The survey puts the average at 6.4 years, you present it as 12-14 and I am the one trying to skew the results? Only 20 dogs(14%) lived to 12-14. If you want to use the maximum length life definition why not just put 16 years and be done with?(16 years is the max lifespan in the study and not 14) Google mines its information automatically from other articles. purebredpups.org, petplace.com and ehow.com are not what would qualify as reliable sources. Why don't you go find your reliable sources first before calling people who actually replace bullshit made up unsourced numbers with sourced numbers trolls.--Dodo bird (talk) 00:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No one is kidding anyone. This is from a single survey and the only respondents appear to be those whose animals died early. Also, it's best not to comment on other editors per WP:NPA. References would be good, and that was suggested. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that you, Dodo bird, actually think a survey designed to determine the frequency of disease in the toller population is the most accurate source to find the average age at death of all tollers, if that's what we're defining lifespan to be. But I admit, I wasn't assuming good faith. So I apologize. Let's put it behind us and all look in our spare time for the source that all the other sites that talk about tollers are using for lifespan. I have a book on dog breeds at home that I'm pretty sure uses a similar figure if it comes down to it. Spacexplosion[talk] 21:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)


 * One and a half months now and still no source presented. I'm going to restore the sourced lifespan used in the health section.--Dodo bird (talk) 23:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Nearly eight weeks and still have an WP:AXE to grind? I reverted it again and you may discuss it at the template. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Your lifespan info is unsourced. Unsourced material that is challenged gets removed. Simple as that.--Dodo bird (talk) 00:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Check again. And if you have the time, please read Don't be a dick. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:59, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

A case of UNDUE
Recent edits have added WP:UNDUE attention on abnormalities in the breed. Balance should be restored I will leave that to uninvolved editors to do this. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Litter size
There's no quotation to give really. It's a number from a table. See for yourself. Stillbirth is 2.9% and ENM (early neonatal mortality = death <1 week) is 1.9%. 6.3 is mean litter size at 8 days. If you factor in the stillbirth and ENM then litter size at birth is a tiny bit more. --Dodo bird (talk) 04:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Not only is a mean value not as useful as a range, the template specifies a range "litter_size: The range in size of a litter". Spacexplosion[talk] 22:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The template was pointed out earlier, but it was ignored. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Once again, sourced info gets removed in favour of unsourced info. If you have a sourced range, sure, use it. But an unsourced range is not more useful than a sourced figure.--Dodo bird (talk) 02:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Once again, your source goes against the common use of the template. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:17, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Viljo koirarannalla 18-edit2.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Viljo koirarannalla 18-edit2.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on January 11, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-01-11. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! — howcheng  {chat} 21:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Notable Dog
I deleted the Notable Dog section of the page last week because the only entry within it was describing a dog which according to a website had achieved a hunting title - and the youngest dog on that page to do so. Personally, I don't think that's a very high standard of notability - but the edit removing that section and reference was reverted. Whatsmore, I think having a section like that, especially wherein the threshold is established to be a particular hunting title opens up the page to be used by breeders for advertising. So its my proposal that the section be removed unless a dog with general wikipedia notability (ie. notable beyond breeders) is substituted. Thoughts? Stoick (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That reference is bad. It's my understanding that the dog also received best of show this year as well. Agree that a low hurdle could be used as advertising for breeders, not only for this breed article but others. I shall remove since I restored and looking at the link, it doesn't support what I thought it did. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Labrador Retriever which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Cleaned up Gallery examples
I have removed redundant pictures, including my own since other users have updated with better examples. I have also removed poorly worded and nonencyclopaedic captions like "These dogs will catch anything!" They do not catch anything. This article should contain well photographed examples of the breed, not just random pics of people's pets that happen to be tollers. Codymr (talk) 00:26, 26 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Codymr (talk
 * Galleries are not intended to be "examples", they're to be galleries and that means random pictures of the breed. See Help:Gallery. I did notice the changed captions and was going to review them later. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think your gallery link states that gallery pics must be random pictures, what you provided explains how to create a gallery. Like everything else on the page, the gallery should be relevant to the subject. For example, kallerna's upload of a Toller running in the water towards camera is a good example of a typical toller. Kappa Pi Sigma's pic of a pup retrieving a floater is a good example of a toller pup. Some of the other pictures did not have a clear purpose, and even worse, captions with exclamation points and other nonencyclopaedic text etc. Please change the new captions I added if you can make them shorter, more concise or more relevant to the article.


 * I think this is what you may have meant to link to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IG#Image_galleries. The first paragraph clearly outlines the editorial guidelines for galleries including repetition, captions, relevance etc:
 * Images are typically interspersed individually throughout an article near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). However, the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject. Images in a gallery should be suitably captioned to explain their relevance both to the article subject and to the theme of the gallery, and the gallery should be appropriately titled (unless the theme of the gallery is clear from the context of the article). Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted. See 1750–75 in Western fashion for an example of a good use of galleries. Codymr (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Reuse of article
Hello. I spotted this article being reused in printed form at the Cheshire Game & Country Fair last weekend - a photo is on the right. Congratulations on getting this article up to such a standard that it's being reused like this. :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:55, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Ancestor Collie
The nova scotia Duck tolling Retriver is a mix between a collie (or american farm collie) and retriever. He has ALL genetic signs of a collie genetic. studies about mdr-gendefect and collie eye anomaly and genetic studies about british dogs shows clear this fact and linked directly to this race. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.142.58.39 (talk) 08:26, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * You'll have to supply a source for that. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:53, 27 June 2020 (UTC)