Talk:Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon

Teddy Roosevelt's dog
The article says, It covers how the dog went from beloved family pet owned by likes of Teddy Roosevelt to demonized dog fighting animal. Wait a minute, is this Pete (Theodore Roosevelt's dog), who ripped a French ambassador's trousers, and was so vicious that Roosevelt considered shooting it? Calling that dog a "beloved family pet" in this context in Wikivoice is something of a lie of omission, isn't it? Geogene (talk) 18:09, 25 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I hadn't noticed that characterization. I suppose that must be something from the book? You are correct, all the sources I've checked, including the non-subscription sources for Pete (Theodore Roosevelt's dog) mentioned the dog was aggressive and prone to biting, with euthanasia being a possibility. If it were to be included in this article it would be nice to verify, unfortunately I wouldn't know which page number in the book it is. I think it's still possible that the dog was still a "beloved family pet" despite its behavior and getting sent away from the White House for a while.
 * PartyParrot42 (talk) 21:30, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * That sentence was uncited and unencyclopedic, and I've removed it (along with making some other needed adjustments). DrOrinScrivello (talk) 22:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Source Cleanup
I've been going through all the sources and verifying that the full article text actually exists in quotes, or that the source actually supports the text. It seems as though someone may have added a few extra citations by accident, and there was one URL I had to fix.

I would like to ensure that this article is clean-ish so that we can make a fair assessment of whether it requires deletion. In reviewing the listed reviews, I noted that the first four cited had exactly the same text, in the exact same order, as the product review page for this book on Amazon.com. It certainly requires another look at this page, especially if the number of reviews will be taken into account when looking at possible deletion. Unfortunately, a couple of the sources they listed are behind a paywall so I am unable to verify if those quotes exist (or don't) in those articles, but I was able to verify that the quote for NPR exists nowhere in the cited text.

PartyParrot42 (talk) 23:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)


 * You can try WP:RX. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:29, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've tried most of those (paywall jumpers, searching for original pdfs or cached sites on google, etc.), except for physically walking into a library. Perhaps someone else who reads the talk page might have access and can clean up or verify the NYT/WSJ? :) I've already taken care of like half of them PartyParrot42 (talk) 16:24, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Replying for completeness - I've taken some of the sources given to me to clean up the page references. All sources (at this current revision, at least) should be good. PartyParrot42 (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2023 (UTC)