Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cavalier King Charles Spaniel/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 02:45, 16 April 2010.

Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

 * Nominator(s): Miyagawa   (talk)  14:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because it is currently a good article, and has been through a peer review since that time. I've just gone through and applied some formatting changes to the references and corrected the points raised in the review. I've raised a few articles to GA now, but this is my first attempt at an FA. There is only one dog breed article currently at FA, which is Beagle. Miyagawa  (talk)  14:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments. No dab links, but you have an external link to http://mail.ukcdogs.com/UKCweb.nsf/80de88211ee3f2dc8525703f004ccb1e/1f7633782490d01785257044004da771?OpenDocument that requires login and is not marked as such . Ucucha 14:43, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, corrected that link to the public standard on the UKC website. Miyagawa   (talk)  14:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick fix. Ucucha 15:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment in the lede, it says "There are a few health issues...", but at least 7 (maybe more if you split knee and hips, as well as others) are listed in the bulk of the article. Saying "a few" in this case seems somewhat inaccurate. Perhaps "A number of...", or other wording? -- B figura  (talk) 17:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed the line to read "There are several health issues...". Miyagawa   (talk)  18:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't profess to know exactly what the original commenter intended, but IMHO "several" typically denotes less than "a few", whereas Bfigura seems to think (and I would have to agree) that >7 listed health problems are more than what both wordings might suggest. Maybe it can be tempered with something along the lines of "The breed is affected by various health issues"? María ( habla  con migo ) 20:19, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed to various as per suggestion. Miyagawa   (talk)  09:56, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Review by Charles Edward


 * General
 * "It was believed that these dogs could keep fleas away, and some even believed that they could prevent forms of stomach illnesses" - believed by who? (The 16th Centurions I suspect, best to be clear though)
 * Changed to "The people of the time believed that these dogs could keep fleas away..." Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Internal link for "Pug"?
 * Done. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * " During the early part of the 18th century, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, kept red and white spaniels of the King Charles type used for hunting." - this sentence is a bit confusing to me. Perhaps it should be "During the early part of the 18th century, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, kept red and white King Charles type spaniels for hunting."
 * Changed as per suggestion. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "In 1926, an American named Roswell Eldridge offered..." better as "In 1926, American Roswell Eldridge offered..."
 * Changed as per suggestion. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Eldridge would die before seeing..." better as "Eldridge died before seeing..."
 * Changed as per suggestion. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "in the Ttiweh Cavalier Kennel, numbers went from around 60 to only 3 during the 1940s", perhaps instead "in the Ttiweh Cavalier Kennel, the population of sixty dropped to three during the 1940s".
 * Changed as per suggestion. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In the "Temperament" section, "Cavaliers" is used frequently. converting some of the instances of "Cavaliers" to pronoun would help it to read better.
 * Reduced the volume of "Cavaliers". Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * MOS
 * "The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is a small breed of dog of Spaniel type, considered one of the toy dog breeds." - "considered" is a WP:WEASEL word. That should be rephrased or attributed.
 * Rephrased to "is classed as a Toy dog by most Kennel Clubs" Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Citations needed
 * "...and it was said of him that "His Majesty was seldom seen without his little dogs"." uncited quote, see WP:MOSQUOTE
 * Done. Miyagawa   (talk)  21:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * " of "Blenheim Spaniels of the old type, as shown in pictures of Charles II of England's time, long face, no stop, flat skull, not inclined to be domed, with spot in centre of skull." " uncited quote
 * Done. Miyagawa   (talk)  21:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "The first recorded Cavalier living in America was brought from Britain in 1956 by W. Lyon Brown, together with Elizabeth Spalding and other enthusiasts, she founded the Cavalier King Charles Club USA which continues to the present day."
 * "The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is one of the largest toy breeds."
 * "The two breeds share similar history and only diverged from each other about 100 years ago."
 * "While the Cavalier weighs on average between 10–18 pounds (4.5–8.2 kg), the King Charles is smaller at 9–12 pounds (4.1–5.4 kg)."
 * "According to statistics released by The Kennel Club, Cavaliers were the 6th most popular dog in the United Kingdom in 2007 with 11,422 registrations in a single year."
 * The source for this is at the end of the next sentence.--Dodo bird (talk) 23:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If that is the source, it only needs to be duplicated to this sentence as well. WP:CITE says that any sentence citing statistics, reports, etc, must be followed by a citation. This can be done easily by naming the ref tag, and copying the tag up to the end of this sentence. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 02:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "They rank 44th in Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs, being of average working/obedience intelligence. " - should proably try to rephrase so the slash can be removed too.
 * Rearranged sentence to remove the slash. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "It is rare for a 10-year-old Cavalier not to have a heart murmur."
 * This is in the ref at the end of the paragraph. "approximately 98% of 10 years old affected"--Dodo bird (talk) 23:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "While heart disease is common in dogs generally – one in 10 of all dogs will eventually have heart problems – mitral valve disease is generally (as in humans) a disease of old age."
 * "...with international research samples in the past few years consistently showing over 90% of cavaliers have the malformation, and that between 30–70% have syrinxes."
 * "...Between six months and four years of age in 85% of symptomatic dogs, according to Clare Rusbridge, a research scientist."
 * "An MRI scan is normally done to confirm diagnosis of SM (and also will reveal PSOM)"
 * "As many as half of all Cavalier King Charles Spaniels may have a congenital blood disorder called idiopathic asymptomatic thrombocytopenia, an abnormally low number of platelets in the blood, according to recent studies in Denmark and the United States."
 * "PSOM has been reported almost exclusively in Cavaliers, and it may affect up to 40% of them."
 * "Cavalier King Charles Spaniels may be predisposed to a form of congenital deafness, which is present at birth, due to a lack of formation or early degeneration of receptors in the inner ear, although this is relatively rare."
 * References
 * Note: most of the link references have a access date of 2009, it might be worth updating the dates. (None are dead)
 * Ref #12 has a "pp", but should instead have a "p"
 * Fixed. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What makes "http://www.terrificpets.com/dog_breeds/cavalier_king_charles_spaniel.asp" a Reliable Source?
 * Ref 29 is a blog "http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterwedderburn/9307223/dog_breeders_in_denial/", unless it can be shown the author is authoritative on the matters he is speaking of, it is not a reliable source.
 * The blog is hosted by the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. The author is one of several staff bloggers the Telegraph has on various subjects and has written a fair number of animal related articles for the Telegraph in addition to being a Vet for 25 years. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Images
 * File:King-charles-spaniel.jpg, has no source, date, author, etc
 * Swapped out the image with another from the same period which has full information. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * All the images are currently on the right. You may consider staggering some to the left
 * Moved three of the images to the left - but not the ones immediately following subsections. Miyagawa   (talk)  18:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * All other images check out
 * Alt text present
 * Prose looks good

Oppose for now, the number of referencing issues is my primary concern. Everything else is pretty well in order, and I find the article well wrote. Its an interesting topic, and I see you've put alot of research into it. Great job so far, keep up the good work and if you can address these issues I'd be happy to change to support. :) &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 15:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments. I would lean toward oppose, based on referencing issues to which Charles referred. I did take the liberty to tweak the lead a bit, reducing the numbers of which, what and wherefore. My issues with the references is that they are not all listed. A basic listing of the references in alpha order would make it more obvious that the fundamental sources have been covered. I have other prose issues that I'll bring up if the reference issues can be addressed. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Two questions about sources: why are barkbytes and terrificpets.com and puppytrainingathome.com reliable sources?


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.