Talk:Fatal dog attacks in the United States/Archive 5

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Gordon Lykins: whodunnit?

Please any/everyone, take some time and research the Gordon Lykins fatal attack (we have several links in the article to make this easier for you to do). As you might expect, it's disturbing, tragic, and horrific; but also it unfolds like a well-written short mystery. Don't miss the videos, they contain information not in the text, and if you watch them all to the end you will be glad you did. Your initial impressions about what happened may be suddenly turned around. Then, think about what we should say in this article about it. Chrisrus (talk) 03:11, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Illustration?

Should this article have a photo or some such to illustrate it? What should it be? I'm thinking about a sign that says "beware of dog" or some such. Chrisrus (talk) 05:45, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• 
  A supurb painting of a potentially fatal dog attack in the US
• 
  A supurb painting of a boy being attacked by a dog. Appears neither fatal nor in the USA.
• 
  An excellent photo of military attack dog training. There are many more such photos in the commons.
• 
  A simple sign. While FDAs in US continue to occur when someone, often a child, wanders into a guard dog's territory, or when guard dog escapes captivity, others, such as those involving people's own house pets, do not fit this pattern.

How about a baby jumping swing thing?Onefireuser (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Tomas Henio

Someone keeps insisting on adding that Henio was eaten to this article. Last time, as I recall, it undone on the grounds that the fact was not sufficiently well established in the supporting citation. Other objections spring to mind as well, but those may not be needed if it's not true. Chrisrus (talk) 21:47, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I've now undone this several times. Any ideas why this person keeps making this change? Is there something in the sources that I'm not seeing? If this is supported by the sources, let's keep it in. If not, then it certainly shouldn't be in Wikipedia.Onefireuser (talk) 22:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Yes, that is annoying, to say the least. Kudos to you for reverting it so promptly, Onefireuser. As you probably know, the last two times this was done it was credited to an IP address 71.62.254.34, which if you paste to a Google search window turns out to be in Staunton, Virginia, 24401. Special:Contributions/71.62.254.34 shows a contribution history of only these two edits, and USER:71.62.254.34 does not exist at this typing.

IP Staunton, VA, please do explain this edit! Where are you getting that information? Why do you keep doing this? Chrisrus (talk) 03:17, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Police Dogs

Onefire recently added an FDA in the USA in which the attacker was a police dog], and wondered why it had been left hadn't made the list before; as it has been several years since the attack and today.

That got me thinking, and I remembered something and went back and checked the CDC report.

It says "For the 20-year study, we excluded 4 human deaths from attacks by guard or police dogs “at work.” (emphasis mine).

It doesn't, however, say why they chose to exclude such attacks.

And this article does not mention these four attacks. I think it should because this article's referent is "FDAs in the USA", with no such restrictions. Ok, it's fundamentally different if a prisoner tries to escape past the guard dogs but doesn't make it, yes, it's a very different phenomenon than the others here, I see that. All I'm saying is, an FDA in the USA is an FDA in the USA. Chrisrus (talk) 04:09, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and we already have at least a couple other incidents that involved guard dogs who were apparently "at work": John Doe on April 10, 2006; Richard Adams November 9, 2006. Of note, in the Jesse Porter case, the dog apparently killed a person who was completely unrelated to the dog's actual "work."Onefireuser (talk) 18:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Mad Dogs

It seems that most of the dogs involved in these incidents are tested for rabies afterwards. Should we also include incidents in which the dog turns out to be rabid? Do we want to include fatal rabid dog attacks on this list?Onefireuser (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

I looked into this before, when I added Ada Clare to the list.

I seem to recall mention of a man who not too long ago died of dog-bite related rabies in the US, but he'd been bitten abroad, flew here, and then developed the disease and died here, so it's not a FDA in the US.

The article Rabies quotes the CDC as saying that dogs rarely get rabies in the US anymore. This we can believe because we know pretty much all dogs here jingle when they move because they have these tags, a licence and proof of rabies vaccination, dangling from their collars, by law.

However, this didn't used to be the case. If this article reaches back further into history, my guess is we are going to start finding more and more deaths by rabid dog attacks. We only know about Ada Clare because she was so famous. Reason dictates she was not the only one of us who died in that horrific way, back in the old days before the vaccine, there might have been many thousands.

Its the rabies virus's life cycle to get into the brain, take it over, and make the victim violently insane, so they attack everything and everything, so that the evil little virus can get into another before the victim dies. So we can imagine that most rabies deaths transmitted by dogs in the US back then were the result of dog attacks. However, we can't assume that to always be true because you can get rabies from simply being licked or just petting by a rabid dog, or by messily killing a rabid dog, or handling a dead rabid dog. These should not be included because they aren't attacks.

Yes, I think, if we can establish that a person died of rabies or any other disease as a direct result of being attacked, it would definitely qualify for the list. If we find that there were thousands of such FDAs in the USA back in the old days, we may want to include that fact as a separate, text section, not on the list, at it is set up for individual events, not clusters or masses of them. I tried to do this, but never found statistics about dog attack rabies deaths in historic times in the US, but you or any reader of these words might have more success.

Shudders What a horror show working on this article is! I need a break.

full song Chrisrus (talk) 05:03, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

"one of the several terms sometimes used by non-experts to refer to pit bulls"

I have a question about the newly added statement "[Bull terrier] is one of the several terms sometimes used by non-experts to refer to pit bulls." I agree with you that this is true. However, I looked at the 3 references given to support this statement and none of them seem to actually say this. They do say that Bull Terriers are sometimes called "pit bulls," but I can't find anywhere that they say "pit bulls" are sometimes called "Bull Terriers." This is a subtle but important distinction. Can we find another source that says that "pit bulls" are sometimes called "Bull Terriers?" In addition, the statement "used by non-experts" seems to be implying that the authors of the Texas study are not experts. Granted, they are MDs, not dog professionals. However, in the context of this article, I'm not sure if we want to call them "non-experts."Onefireuser (talk) 17:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Should we question in the article U Texas study finding zero pitbull FDAs in the USA in 1966-1980.

The section about the U of Texas study is just supposed to be summarizing the study, but we at one point we say "However, and seem to question whether they found pit bull FDAs in the USA because they could have been confused about what the term "bull terrier" refers to; and so the bull terriers they mention might have been pit bulls. None of that is in the study, that's us being surprised about what they said. I think it would be better to simply accept the fact that they found no fatal pit bull attacks maybe because maybe there were none; and that when the authors said "bull terrier", that's what they meant. It might be hard for you or me to believe no pit bull killed anyone during those years, but please check the list and notice that neither do we have no evidence of any 1966-1980 fatal pit bull attacks. You'd have to go back to 1945 infant Marguerite Derdenger attack.

If we want to add something not seen in either of these two articles, we should just hold them up side by side and make any conclusions that are so reasonable that they'd pass WP:SYN's reasonability implication, and just come out to say pit bulls didn't start killing people until recently. Who knows? Someone might read that and realize something really important. Chrisrus (talk) 18:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Many good points. Not sure what the best thing to do is. However, your post does make me think that a starting point would be our use of the term "pit bull." In my understanding, the Texas study DID find some deaths by "pit bulls" because a Bull Terrier IS a pit bull. (See the numerous scholarly and media sources we've cited...) If they didn't find any deaths by APBTs of AmStaffs, that isn't too surprising because there probably weren't many of those dogs around and most of them may have been owned by responsible people. What exactly do you mean when you use the term "pit bull"?Onefireuser (talk) 16:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

See here: Talk:Pit_bull#bull_terriers_are_not_pit_bulls. The article Pit bull should not be saying that bull terriers are pit bulls. They are not. There I say what a pit bull is; one that belongs to the pit bull branch of the dog family tree, like Pete the Pup or theoretically the same thing recreated in the same way pit bulls were created in the first place. Bull terriers are neither of things, they are not pit bulls in terms of their branch on the family tree, nor are they pit bulls in morphology because of their totally different shaped skulls. All these references about the vagueness of the term "pit bull" are about mixed breed dogs that might approach pit bull morphology despite some other ancestry. U Texas didn't say those attacks were by mixed breeds, they said they were bull terriers, period. I want to delete the whole bit so it just says that there were no fatal pit bull attacks in the United States during that period. If we want we can say that the closest thing there was to a fatal pit bull attack were these bull terrier attacks, which shares a common ancestor with pit bulls but are not pit bulls, but dump the part about them actually being pit bulls, or called pit bulls, because they are not pit bulls. Chrisrus (talk) 02:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

So when you say "pit bull," do you mean American Pit Bull Terrier/American Staffordshire Terrier? That is certainly one reasonable, yet narrow, definition of the term. It may be the best definition of the term. Unfortunately, as described in several of our references, this is not the definition used by the general public or by the news media.Onefireuser (talk) 03:29, 8 August 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Those sources talking about the term "pit bull" being vague are referring mostly to mixed-breed dogs. Here, there is no indication the dogs in those attacks were mixed breeds.

Those sources do talk some about other purebred dogs, such as Dogos Argentinos and other breeds that are morphologically pretty darn similar to pit bulls, but have only some shared ancestry with Pete the Pup and other true pit bulls, and so could be called "pit bulls" (or, preferably to me, "pit-bull types") not based on ancestry but morphology, including the squarish head. But bull terriers don't have square heads, they have egg-shaped heads which sets them apart from such pit bull-types. Bull terriers are their own thing in terms of shape and their widely varied ancestry. I see no reason for us to interject such commentary about the findings of the Texas study when all we're supposed to be doing is summarizing it. It sounds like we're second-guessing them, which we should only do in the face of some clear evidence that they didn't mean what they said. That's all I'm saying. There may be some value in us noting differences in the studies that are not mentioned in the studies, or maybe noting that bull terriers are the closest thing genetically to a pit bull in the Texas study, but I don't want to say that those bull terriers in the Texas study actually were pit bulls in any sense. Chrisrus (talk) 07:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Disease

Disease caused by dog sh*t would need a separate article. Dogs are banned in the capital of Iceland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RollandRFanatick (talk • contribs) 10:01, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Reykjavik banned dogs in 1924. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RollandRFanatick (talk • contribs) 11:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Chrisrus (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

See http://www.yukon-news.com/arts/the-dogs-of-reykjavik — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.123.215.180 (talk) 10:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Copper

We need to talk about “Copper" the dog who killed James Hudson. As you may recall, the initial report, [1], categorized the dog as a “pit bull-mix”. The later report, [2] says “As for the dog, it will be put down. It is currently confined at the Tri-County Animal Shelter. Officials at the shelter told WAVY.com the dog was a Labrador - American Bulldog mix. The dog's owner and police identified the animal as a "pit bull mix."

There is no way that anyone, shelter official or not, could determine that a dog is a Lab/Am. Bulldog mix by just by examining it[3]. I could only speculate why the shelter official would have categorized Cooper that way, but it defies belief so let's just go with what the family and police said it was, some kind of pit-bullish-type-mix. Chrisrus (talk) 06:25, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you that a lab-bulldog mix is a pit-bullish-type-mix. So I think it would be fine to call the dog that in the article as long as we make it clear somewhere in the article that we're using the VERY broad sense of the term "pit bull"--so broad that it would include a lab/bulldog mix. I agree with you that that broad definition is sometimes used. What I don't think we want to do is say that "Pit Bull" means APBT or AmStaff, and then say that someone's random short-haired mutt that was identified by animal control workers as a Lab mix is actually a "Pit Bull."

In the case of "Copper," I'm not sure if the police or the county Animal Shelter would be better at identifying the make-up of a mixed-breed dog, but I don't think it matters. I'm not sure why you think it is easier to identify a dog as "Pit Bull mix" than as a "Labrador mix" or as a "American Bulldog mix." All three breeds are common, and mixes of them look very similar.

All we know for sure is that the dog was not a pedigreed purebred. It seems that the most responsible thing for us to do in keeping with the standards of Wikipedia would be to report the uncertainty that is present in the RS's.Onefireuser (talk) 00:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

In reply to "I agree.....is actually a "pit bull", how about "(x)-type mix"; e.g.: "collie-type mix" or "husky-type mix"? It implies well to the reader that we are speaking of the general morphology of the animal; that's all; the ancestry is unknown. A mixed breed whose skull and body were roughly close to, say, a spaniel, terrier, retriever, or pit bull.

I didn't mean to imply that it's easier to identify a mixed-breed dog as "pit bull-mix" than it would a "Lab-mix" or a "bulldog mix". But looking just at this poster, http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/uploaded_files/tinymce/Voith_Inter-observer%20Reliability%20Poster_11x17.pdf, (thanks for the link), it's obvious that it's impossible to identify a mix of unknown ancestry as something as specific as specifically 0.5 Labrador retriever and 0.5 American Bulldog, just by looking at it. That's all I meant. Experienced shelter workers are reasonably assumed capable of identifying many widely known pure-bred dogs, such as basset hounds or something, and maybe even describing accurately the general shape of mixed breeds by comparing them to breeds they know, "about midway between lab and Am bulldog morphologies", that would be meaningful. But no one could know something as specific as "Lab/Am. Bulldog mix" by physical examination alone of dogs like those on the poster. Chrisrus (talk) 03:31, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I actually agree with you. However, in doing so, it seems we need to agree that all of the media/police/shelter guesses as to mix are just that--guesses. However, to play the devil's advocate, hear this:

You seem to be saying that it IS possible to say a dog is a "Pit Bull mix," perhaps meaning half APBT and half something else. Then it would follow that one could say a dog is a "Lab mix," meaning half Labrador Retriever and half something else. It would then also be possible to say that a dog is an "American Bulldog mix," meaning half American Bulldog and half something else. So basically, we're saying you can mix an APBT, Lab, or Am Bulldog with another breed and still recognize the original APBT, Lab, or Am Bulldog in the mix. But you seem to be saying that in the situation when you mix a Lab and an Am Bulldog, you lose the ability to see the original Lab and Am Bulldog. I'm not sure what would lead you to that conclusion. If anything, it seems that it would be EASIER to identify a dog that is half Lab and half Am Bulldog than a dog that is just half Lab and half unknown breed.

In summary, it seems that we need to call all of the mixed breed dogs on this page exactly that: "mixed breed" (which would be in keeping with the scientific research on visual identification of mixed breeds). Otherwise, I'm not buying the argument that a dog can't be identified as "Lab/Am Bulldog mix."Onefireuser (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Simply saying “mixed breed” doesn’t give much information, but if all we know is “mixed breed”, that’s what we should say. If we know more about mixed breeds, we should say more. We could say "spitz-type mix" or "terrier-type mix", or (fill-the-general-dog-type) mix, where this information is available and reasonably reliable, is good to include. In sum, if we know what type of mixed breed it is, that’s what we should say. This is the case with Copper. Chrisrus (talk) 06:12, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Final statistics for 2013

We have not included these cases for 2013. It's time me made an informed, reasonable decision:

• The death of James Harding According to sources, he was killed by a car during a dog attack. They chased him into traffic. In his horror, he ran out in front of a car. I think it should be included because it was a dog attack that caused a man to die, therefore within the scope of this article.
• The death of Patricia Ritz. There was very little left of the body, so there is of course some doubt, but how reasonable is it to leave it off the list? Please, the measure is reasonably. The woman was living in a compound of some fifty, not dogs, wolf/dog hybrid canids. By the time people came searching, they found the animals tragically badly cared for and her bones scattered among them. Is the doubt reasonable enough to leave them off the statistics?
• The death of Juan Campos. Please scroll up and see the section we had opened last year in order to collect and study and discuss available sources on his death. There is, of course, some possibility that he just happened to die of something else just at the moment there happened to be a wild pack of marauding stray molosser mixes going about attacking people and dogs, killing his chihuahua right next to him, and ripping his leg off after he died. But how reasonable is this scenario? Reasonable enough for us to leave it off the list?

We could include these in main 2013 list along with any caveats and qualms that we should rightly inform the reader of and let him/her decide. Then, we should include all three in the end-of-year statistics. Chrisrus (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I assume you're joking about all 3 of these cases. The first one is a man that was running with two dogs behind him and got hit by a car. For that to be included in an encyclopedia entry on fatal dog attacks is absurd. The reference for the 2nd case says "Investigators said they believe that Ritz became sick and died and that the dogs...consumed her body to survive." There's nothing in there that says they attacked her. The 3rd case, Juan Campos, is the only one that seems like it could possibly be a fatal attack. But, unfortunately, we don't have any reliable sources to say it was. All we have are a bunch of articles saying that a 96 year-old man (96!) was found dead in his backyard and that the neighbor's dogs had bitten his leg after digging under the fence. Sure, from that description it seems possible that he was attacked and killed. But it also seems possible that he died because he was 96 and then the dogs had time to dig under the fence to get to the body. Either way, we have no way of knowing. The news sources don't say what the investigation determined about the cause of death.Onefireuser (talk) 01:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)Onefireuser

The apparent cause of Juan Campos's death here is: dogs ate his leg off. There is no sign we have of any other kind of death, none. Although reason dictates he could have died first of something else and then was eaten, we have no proof of any other cause of death. That's just speculation. Evidence trumps speculation, one would think. There is only one apparent cause of death.

We know James Harding was killed because he was being attacked by dogs. It's not a dog-bite-related-fatality, but it was a death caused by a dog attack. They were attacking him, and he died as a result. He would never have run out into the street and been killed by a car if those dogs hadn't been attacking him. This referent of this article is dog attacks that kill, not dog-bites that do. That dog attack killed a man, so that dog attack should be included. Chrisrus (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Juan Campos

On August 20th, 2013, in Katy, Texas, a man found the badly mauled dead body of his grandfather, 96-year old Juan Campos, in his backyard, along with that of his pet Chihuahua, and his neighbor's escaped pit bulls in the area, one attacking another dog. An autopsy is scheduled to determine whether he had died of another cause before being mauled by dogs. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=9225294 http://www.khou.com/news/local/Cy-Fair--221849341.html Chrisrus (talk) 06:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Text: "Part of one leg was missing." TV reporter: "Deputies say the man's leg, right leg, however, was half eaten by dogs." http://www.kcentv.com/story/23310219/man-after-apparent-dog-attack Chrisrus (talk) 14:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

We should decide now before doing the summary for 2013 whether to include this attack. Can we find out the official cause of death somehow? Chrisrus (talk) 21:02, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:RSes on Juan Campos's Death that we know of.

• "96-year-old Katy man found dead after apparent dog attack," KHOU 11, August 30, 2013 (www.khou.com)
• "Man found dead in Katy in possible dog attack," ABC 13 KTRK, August 30, 2013 (abclocal.go.com)
• Demond Fernandez, "Katy man found dead in possible dog attack," Yourhoustonnews.com, August 30, 2013 (www.yourhoustonnews.com)
• Glenn, Mike "Authorities suspect dog attack in man's death," Houston Chronicle, August 30, 2013 (www.chron.com)
• "Man, 96, mauled by dogs in back yard, dies,"UPI, August 31, 2013 (www.upi.com)
• "Man Found Dead After Apparent Dog Attack," Kcentv.com, August 31, 2013 (www.kcentv.com)
• "Man dead in apparent dog attack," KVEO News, September 2, 2013 (www.kveo.com)

Now, if these reporters would just update these with what the coroner report said, that'd be great. What if we just asked them nicely? Chrisrus (talk) 18:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree. It would be nice if we had access to a WP:RS that reported the results of the investigation.Onefireuser (talk) 22:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)Onefireuser

New format for 2014?

Why not take this opportunity to update the list format? Because we're starting a new list, we can do it differently, and there has been much consensus, scroll up that the columns need re-arranging and so on.

This format was chosen when it was a list of people who were killed by dogs. Now, it's a list of events. So we should now instead say "A fatal dog attack occurred, on this day, in this place, to this person, by this category of dog, details. Even if the dog attack results in the deaths of three people, it will be only one item instead of three to the extent that all three died in the same attack.

We could add more columns, such as extended tethering, neutered/intact, rabid/not, on own property/escaped, and so on. Chrisrus (talk) 22:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Date	Location	Victim	Age	Sex	Category of Dog	Category of Attack	Circumstances
January 5	Houston, Texas	Christine Bell	43	F	Pit bull mix	Pack=yes; owner=neighbor; property=at large; rabies=no; other victims=2; negligent owner indications=yes; criminal charges=pending investigation	Killed by a pack of dogs in an attack in which 2 other people were also injured. The owners of the dogs had previously received multiple citations for keeping the animals in deplorable conditions, not licensing or vaccinating them, and allowing them to run at large. Homicide detectives were determining whether to press criminal charges.

Great idea. Thanks, Chrisrus. How about a column for spay/neuter status since that has been identified as an important factor?Onefireuser (talk) 23:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)Onefireuser

Done. What other columns should we add, if any, and what about the order? We should finalize this quickly because each new item makes column work more difficult. Chrisrus (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Niko, 130lb. pitbull?

Today I deleted these words " - thus unable to be classified as a true pit bull" which followed the statement that Niko, the dog that killed Mia Derouen in March of this year, 2014. Is this true? To find out, I Googled around and found that the breed standards and descriptions specify a much lighter animal. Yet, on the other hand, I was also able to find individual pit bulls that weighed much more than one hundred pounds. I found some breeders who have been breeding pit bulls for size and have very large pit bulls, including 120 pound animals, which of course could be fattened to reach 130, which is what Niko weighed. Also, we know that poodles and schnauzers and others can vary between toy size to giant size and still be poodles or schnauzers. The source we are using shows no doubt that Niko was a pit bull, but if that's just not possible we should talk about what to do. But I'm not so sure that it's not possible to be 130 pounds and a pit bull at the same time. Chrisrus (talk) 18:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Given that pit bulls are a class of dog breeds as opposed to one single breed, there isn't defined standards for what it is. 130 lbs is a big for a pit, but not unheard of. Most people consider an AmStaff AKC specifications for "pit bull", but very few dogs labelled as pitbulls are purebred amstaffs. A pit/mastiff mix can easily get to that size. PearlSt82 (talk) 19:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Rottweilers as Child-specific killers

It seems worth noting that Rottweiler's in this list killed 5 times as many children age 12 and under compared to adults. Pitt Bulls killed age 12 and under about 55% of the time. Ywaz (talk) 22:51, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

The Summary Tables must be removed

The information in the actual list is already on shaky ground because of the lack of reliable secondary sources. (Please see the Talk section above "Major problem with reliability of sources for this page").

The summary tables, which are based on the sketchy information in the list, are frankly inappropriate for Wikipedia. They are are original research and not exempted based on WP:CALC

Please see WP:NOR. Here are relevant quotes from that page:

1. "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to the original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."
2. "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."
3. "Routine calculations do not count as original research. Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, is allowed provided there is consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources."

So what we have in these summary table is: A synthesis of Wikipedia editors' interpretations of primary sources that barely meet the standards of WP:RS. We start out with media sources that are generally not from major newspapers. These sources are often vague or contradict each other or themselves. We then interpret these sources and enter our interpretation into the columns of the list. We then combine these interpretations into summary tables that do not reflect the uncertainty in the original sources or the uncertainty in our interpretations of those sources. This is completely appropriate for an independent blog, but it is clearly a violation of Wikipedia:Core_content_policies.Onefireuser (talk) 13:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser
We can and do summarize data all the time. Chrisrus (talk) 08:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course we do. That, however, does not mean it is appropriate in this instance. Again, please refer to WP:CALC:

Routine calculations do not count as original research. Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, is allowed provided there is consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources.

In our case, the summary tables do not meet these criteria:

1. The data on which the summary tables are built is already vague and inconsistent. Summarizing it covers up this uncertainty. For example, how would we handle the Tyler Jett case or the Aiden McGrew case in the summary tables?
2. Since calculating statistics is not a basic process like adding numbers or converting units, there is no clear way of how to represent the data in an accurate way: For example, how do we determine categories of dogs? If we are not just going by breed, but are also going by type, should we combine all the retrievers together? Should we combine all "bully breeds" together? How do we handle mixed-breed dogs? In the peer-reviewed literature on dog-bite fatalities (eg the big CDC study) they specifically point out the difficulty in determining how to statistically summarize the data. They decided to summarize it in a few different ways and present them all. However, that is a research paper: original research. Playing around with statistics like that is not appropriate on Wikipedia.

So adding up the number of attacks like we do at the top of the entry for each year is allowed by WP:CALC but playing around with statistics, especially when the statistics are based on data that is itself poorly sourced, is not appropriate on Wikipedia.Onefireuser (talk) 13:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

RemovedOnefireuser (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Like a lead summarizes the info in the article, these charts summarize the info in the lists. How does removing them constitute article improvement? How is the reader served by being denied them? How is the reader harmed by seeing them? The reader is served by these charts. It's easier to understand the data. Chrisrus (talk) 12:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no "obvious, correct, and meaningful" and meaningful way to summarize the data. For some of the data, such as age of the victims, there are "obvious, correct, and meaningful" ways to summarize. So we could keep that summary table if people want to. However, for breed, we simply don't have a straightforward way to create a summary that does not involve our own interpretation of the data. This is because many reasons. A few of which are:

• There is no clear way to handle mixed breed dogs in the tables. This is an issue that is discussed in the scholarly papers published on this subject.
• There is no clear way to decide how to group breeds, types, or "categories" of dogs. Ultimately, the decision to present the data with certain breeds grouped together or not grouped together will show the data in a different light. Deciding which way to show the data is original research. Just look at the scholarly papers that we summarize. No one would say that they are not original research.
• There is no clear way to handle conflicting or vague claims in the primary sources about breed. If one primary source says it was a Golden Retriever and another says it was a Duck Tolling Retriever, then we are engaging in original research when we decide what kind of dog we think it was.
• Our sources are inherently unreliable when it comes to identifying mixed breed dogs. Many of the dogs on this page are of mixed breed. There is extensive scholarly research showing that even experts do a poor job of identifying the make-up of mixed breed dogs. Many of our sources rely on law enforcement or the public to identify mixed breed dogs. Even the ones that rely on Animal Control are guesses at best.
• You can just look to this Wikipedia article for additional evidence of the difficulty of identifying mixed breed dogs. Look at the case of Tyler Jett. Media identified the dog several different breeds, leading Wikipedia editors to attempt to identify the breed themselves from grainy photographs. This is clearly original research.

If there were an "obvious, correct, and meaningful" way to present the data, I would be all for it, but I don't know of a way to do that. Does this make sense?Onefireuser (talk) 13:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Not at all. We have the ages and most common and second most common dog types by year, summarized from the list. What's wrong with that? Most summaries go at the end, so I'll place them there. Chrisrus (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we don't see eye-to-eye on this. I'll think about it some more and get back to you.Onefireuser (talk) 18:01, 29 April 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

I've been gradually working to update the Summary Tables so that they reflect the data tables, however, I still feel that these summary tables (especially the category of dog table) are Original Research because there is no "obvious, correct, and meaningful" way to summarize the information about category of dog.Onefireuser (talk) 13:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Is this done? The bot will want to archive it, but it has no "done" template. I think we've compromised by putting it at the end, where summaries normally go.

Unfortunately, I don't think we're done with this issue. Putting the tables at the end does not address the serious concerns about WP:OR that I've raised above. This is a core issue on Wikipedia and something we need to take seriously.Onefireuser (talk) 22:00, 3 June 2013 (UTC)Onefireuser

Well, obviously all Wikipedia is is just one big summary of what's written elsewhere, so summarizing things is not bad to do. The guidelines and such you mention seem to me to be talking about drawing undue conclusions in summaries. Chrisrus (talk) 05:45, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

The numerous issues related to WP:NOR with this section of the article have not been resolved. Therefore, in order to keep the page in line with WP:NOR, the Summary Tables are being removed. Please propose a way to resolve the numerous issues of Original Research mentioned above. Once those issues are resolved, we will be able to replace this valuable part of the article.Onefireuser (talk) 20:49, 25 July 2014 (UTC)Onefireuser

I don't agree. Those bulleted issues are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. There is nothign WP:NOR about summarizing. Summerizing is most of what Wikipedians are supposed do. Chrisrus (talk) 19:28, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SUMMARYISNOTOR. Summary cannot be not WP:OR because, if it were, practically all we do here on Wikipedia would be WP:OR. Chrisrus (talk) 03:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SUMMARYISNOTOR clearly states "Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source." It goes on to give an example, "For example, if a published source gives the numbers of votes cast for each candidate in an election, it is not original research to include percentages alongside the numbers, so long as it is a simple calculation and the vote counts all come from the same source. Deductions of this nature should not be made if they serve to advance a position." Thus, your decision to make a summary of all DBRFs by "mastiff type" dogs clearly does count as a simple mathematical summary. Similarly, your decision to group Pit Bulls, pit bull mixes, and pit bull type dogs into one group goes beyond a simply calculation and is not allowed on Wikipedia. We have been disagreeing on this for a while. You seem confident that what you are doing is in the best interest of Wikipedia. I also feel that what I am doing is in the best interest of Wikipedia. At this point, the best thing for us to do may be to bring this up with the NOR noticeboard.Onefireuser (talk) 22:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)Onefireuser

In addition, as the tables stand currently, the percentages add up to more than 100%. For example, in 2013 they add up to 105%.

• This section is a bit messy, so I'm just going to add a bullet here to separate out my comment. I have to say I'm very much in Onefireuser's camp here. My understanding is that the summary tables are numerical sums of the number of incidents in each of the reported-incident tables earlier in the article. If that's the case, that's very inappropriate, because the sampling methodology for those tables is effectively, "Someone found a reliable source for it and added it to Wikipedia", but the way it is now, it appears as if it is a table summarizing research on the breakdown of absolute numbers of fatal dog attacks. These are two very different things, and the second one is definitely OR. If the lists above were known to be exhaustive, or were recreated from reliable sources claiming that they are exhaustive, I think there might be an argument to be made there, but as it is now it definitely needs to go. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 23:18, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

In all the papers on this subject, they summarize just as we do in the 2013 case you mention, adding a footnote explaining that there are more dogs than attacks because not every attack included only one type of dog. Second, you seem to be saying that the numbers we are giving are invalid because there might be more attacks that we haven't heard of. But we do here what all the papers on the subject do, state clearly and repeatedly that there might be more. I'll have a look at adding even more of this. But even without that, the fact that there might be more such attacks than we have here doesn't make it original research. It's just summarizing the data we have, so you'll need some other grounds, such as lack of precision or some such, because there possibly being more attacks doesn't mean this is original research because summarizing the article is not original research because if it were, most article leads would be WP:OR.bChrisrus (talk) 06:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

The summary tables are helpful to the reader because this is a long list and it's not easy for the people to get a good idea of how many of these attacks were, for example, on little kids, or how common it really is, for example, that German Shepherd fatal attacks occur, and if there are any trends. The summary tables serve the reader well by allowing researchers to look at that and Chrisrus (talk) 06:30, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

First off, the fact that you consider this wikipedia article to be similar to research papers on the subject really betrays the fact that this is original research. Those research papers get to put summary tables because they are research papers, not an encyclopedia. Second, you suggest that it helps people get a sense of the numerical breakdown of how many dog attacks there are per breed, etc. This is exactly the problem. The sampling methodology of this table is "the attack got news coverage" and "someone found the news coverage and added the attack to Wikipedia". The number of items in this particular list and in particular the number of items in the list broken down by breed is not relevant material, and it is a very unreliable method for assessing any kind of information about the number of attacks that actually take place.

The WP:CALC idea would be if you have like a table of information of a population broken down by age and you want to take a sum across the columns to get a total. It's not about counting up the number of events from totally different sources and synthesizing them into a table broken down by dog breed.0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 14:36, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Per the overwhelming consensus over at NORB, I'm going to remove the summary tables as original research at this point.0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 08:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Missing DBRFs

There are numerous DBRFs every year that are never reported in the media. Many of them are never reported anywhere. Some, however, are reported in medical case studies, but only if there is something medically novel about the case. I am going to start assembling a list of cases here that are not found in the news media, but that may not have enough info for inclusion on the main list. We can decide on a case-by-case basis what to do with them:Onefireuser (talk) 00:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)Onefireuser

1. 2014: Case records of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Case 10-2014. A 45-year-old man with a rash (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24670171): Bitten on hands and arms while bathing his dog. Eventually died of bacteremia and purpura fulminans due to Capnocytophaga canimorsus, an unusual infection that comes from bacteria in a dog's mouth.
2. 1993: EVALUATION OF FATAL DOG BITES: THE VIEW OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER AND ANIMAL BEHAVIORIST (https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=143002): 4-year old girl attacked in back yard by 2 strange dogs.
3. 2004: Capnocytophaga canimorsus sepsis with purpura fulminans and symmetrical gangrene following a dog bite in a shelter employee. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15201655) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Onefireuser (talk • contribs) 14:29, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
4. 1992: Death due to attack from chow dog. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1288259) Elderly woman attacked by her dog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Onefireuser (talk • contribs) 00:19, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Let's add this/these to the article. Chrisrus (talk) 20:37, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Should the List (Section 2) be removed from this article?

Our study in Section 2 is far from a complete survey of all dog-bite related fatalities. Another study based on CDC WONDER data found that there were at least 26 deaths in 2000. Our study on this Wikipedia page identified only 5 in 2000. If we are only reporting less than 20% of cases, what is the point of this list? There does not seem to be any valid inclusion criteria except "happened to be reported by some news website." On what basis is this material appropriate for an encyclopedia? Please see WP:SENSATION and WP:BADIDEA.Onefireuser (talk) 01:09, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• I don't see why we should be repeating the research of the CDC at al.— badly. Mangoe (talk) 12:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support removal, there is also no data for 1997 and 1998. PearlSt82 (talk) 12:46, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
• I don't think it matters what percentage of the reported deaths we actually cover. Even if we were doing the research perfectly, it's still us doing original research. The fact that we're not covering the topic exhaustively is a good demonstration of why WP:OR is in place.

I also think that if this isn't a violation of WP:OR, then it's necessarily a violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE. It seems like either it's a random collection of non-notable dog attack deaths or it's a systematic survey of all dog deaths; the former is indiscrminate, the latter is original research, neither are appropriate, so I support removal.0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 14:20, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to be certain what is being referred to by "Section 2". Do you mean Media reports of fatal dog attacks in the United States? -- Brangifer (talk) 14:39, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Is this a question for me? You indented as if it is, but you also changed everyone's indentation so it looked like each paragraph is a reply to the previous one rather than a reply to the top level comment. Either way, yes, we're talking about the list of incidents.0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 14:52, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

My question is part of a threaded discussion, and anyone can answer. Thanks for the answer. (Right now, with the same indentation, instead of a threaded discussion, I find it visibly hard to separate comments. Mangoe's, Pearl's and your comment are again one single block ending with your sig, which could easily create confusion. No big deal though. There is no absolute rule here defining how to thread discussions. I favor visible separation through indentation. When the same indentation is used, bullets are usually used to draw attention to that fact. See any !vote at an Afd.) -- Brangifer (talk) 15:28, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I've changed it to bullet, since I agree they are best for demarcating same-level comments. I've never seen threading work the way you've mentioned it, which is contrary to WP:INDENT (you only increase indent level if you are responding to a comment, "sister" responses have the same level of indentation). It's not a big deal, though.0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 16:43, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Incompleteness is not an issue. Of course this is not a complete survey of all fatal dog attacks in the United States. It's not supposed to be. It doesn't claim to be. In fact, it says repeatedly that it is not. It's a dynamic list, an incomplete list. There are countless incomplete lists all over Wikipedia. Look at List of famous dogs, List of unusual deaths, or List of exoplanets. If you've got an issue with dynamic lists in general, there must be an appropriate forum for that. Chrisrus (talk) 17:20, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

You are not using the synthesis rule correctly. The point of the rule is to keep people from publishing their own ideas, not from researching things in WP:RSes and summarizing it in Wikipedia. Doing research and summarizing facts could never be a violation of anything on Wikipedia because Wikipedia would not exist without Wikipedians doing research and summarizing it. Maybe 95% of all contributions to Wikipedia consist of doing research in RSes and summarizing it, so this article cannot be rightly criticized on the grounds that Wikipedians researched it in RSes and summarized that research.

For example, I remember a clear-cut case of original research by synthesis on the article Criticisms of Noam Chomsky. Some guy tried to add his own criticism of Noam Chomsky, and it was well cited and valid. But it was his criticism of Noam Chomsky, not one that he had found in a WP:RS. So, here, if someone personally knew about a fatal dog attack in the United States which had not been published anywhere, and added that to the article, that would be original research.

When working on Wikipedia, there will be times, such as when sources disagree, that will call for Wikipedians to not just be, as Jimmy Wales calls them, "transcription monkeys". He was talking about something else (it was the age of a famous person) but he said that those who think that anything about the rules and guidelines and such mean that we should knowingly include incorrect information to the encyclopedia; that anyone who thinks that is sorely mistaken. On this article, there could be situations in which, for example, a fatal attack is attributed at first to one kind of dog and then another kind of dog, or maybe it's attributed to a basset hound, but there is obvious reason to believe that the dog was not a basset hound. It doesn't happen a lot, it but it happens. In such cases, here just as in all kinds of articles all over Wikipedia, Wikipedians have to stop being transcription machines and think and discuss and decide what the best thing to do would be in a given case and do our best to make it good as it can be given the problem. The only thing is to just be reasonable.

Original research by synthesis would be for example if we were to look at all the sources and say that the reason that a high percentage of fatal attacks involve pitbulls (cite this fact) is because they are the among the strongest dogs on the planet (cite this fact), and, of the strongest dogs, they are the most common and popular (cite this fact) and that they actually attack people less often than smaller, weaker dogs (cite this fact). That would be us cobbling our own conclusion from different citable sources. That is why its very important to have the WP:SYN rule, even though it's so widely abused rule on Wikipedia that great care should be taken when using it. Chrisrus (talk) 17:20, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Chrisrus, I'm still not sure what the point of this list is. That was my original question above. Interestingly, the examples you gave of other lists don't actually exist. List of famous dogs actually just goes to "Lists of dogs." List of exoplanets goes to "Lists of planets." And List of unusual deaths actually goes where it is supposed to go. However, the main issue here, as 0x0077BE clearly pointed out, is that our list is indiscriminate. There is nothing notable about the list as a whole and if there was, then it would be Original Research. There is also nothing notable about the individual items on the list. This makes it quite different than List of unusual deaths. On that page most of the items are notable in and of themselves and most even have their own wikipedia article. On our page, only two out of many dozens are notable in and of themselves (and barely notable at that). There may be problems with List of unusual deaths, but if they started just googling "bizarre death" and including every event like [[4]] or [[5]] they would quickly have an indiscriminate list.Onefireuser (talk) 20:45, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

List of dogs is an example of a list each item is not necessarily notable enough to have it's own article.

List of potentially habitable exoplanets is an example of another list that, like this one, reason dictates, couldn't possibly be complete, because surely there must be more that we couldn't possibly know about, and also that list, like this one, expands regularly when new ones are found. List of unusual deaths is an example that exists because it's interesting to many people. Chrisrus (talk) 17:02, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Editors may be interested to see some examples of how people have found this Wikipedia article useful: [6] and [7]. I'm not sure what it says about their legal skills, but it is flattering that these lawyers were able to use our research to provide statistics that they could not find in any other reputable source.Onefireuser (talk) 23:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

That second law firm also unfortunately cites dogsbite.org in the same paragraph as this WP article. PearlSt82 (talk) 11:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Um, yeah. This kind of passing along our (inadequate) research is why this sort of list needs to go. Mangoe (talk) 14:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Please start a new section if you're going to change the subject. WP:NOTFORUM. Chrisrus (talk) 17:02, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

How to handle Mixed Breed Dogs

Chrisrus recently changed the Category of Dog for Ellyssa Rhae Peterson to "Mixed Breed." Apparently this change was made because the news media reported that the dogs "were mutts" that "appeared to be a combination of Labrador, German shepherd and other species." I agree that we should probably call these dogs "mixed breed." There are numerous problems with calling them Lab-Shepherd mixes (not least of which is that fact that the police/reporter think that breeds are "species"). However, for now I have reverted it. Calling these 2 dogs mixed breed is inconsistent with the hundreds of other incidents in this article. Most of the dogs in our article are mixed breed dogs that have been visually identified by police, neighbors, random people on the street, owners, animal control, etc. Why would we decide to call these 2 "mixed breeds" but assign breed labels to all the others? This may come down to a WP:RS issue. The scientific evidence, some of which we document in this article, clearly states that visual ID, especially by police etc is not a reliable way to determine breed. This is doubly true for mixed breed dogs.

So should we continue assigning breed designations based on our un-reliable sources or should we demand better documentation (eg registration) and when there are no reliable sources simply write "mixed breed" as Chrisrus decided to do in the case of Ellyssa Rhae Peterson? Onefireuser (talk) 13:18, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Should we be recording breed at all? Its highly unlikely that many, if any, of the dogs involved in fatal attacks are purebred. Beyond DNA testing there is no reliable way to ascertain a dog's makeup. PearlSt82 (talk) 15:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I do think we should be recording breed if we can. It is definitely a major point of interest regarding dogs and injuries. However, I'm not sure how we can source it reliably. According to WP:RS, "News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact." And "Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis". It seems that our news sources may be considered reliable for dates, ages, and possibly names. For these items, there seems to be little disagreement between sources. However, you have a good point, that it may be difficult to reliably source breed information from news reports. WP:RS also states "The reporting of rumors has a limited encyclopedic value... Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors." There seem to be a number of factors that suggest that our news sources may not meet WP:RS when it comes to breed identification. First, there are frequent inconsistencies regarding breed ID. Second, a large body of scientific evidence suggests that visual ID of mixed breed dogs is difficult or impossible. Third, most of the scientific journal articles suggest that news media may misrepresent breed. For example, the CDC paper from 2000 stated "ascribed to breeds with a reputation for aggression." It does seem like we may run the risk of violating the statement "Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors." I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this. At the end of the day, our most important goal is to make sure that we are working in accordance with WP:5P. Onefireuser (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

First, thanks for all the work you've been doing. I have some time coming up and will try to follow your lead with these old newspaper searches. If you'd like me to search certain areas so we can cover more ground, let me know.

Second, we give the reader a fair summary of what the sources say about what kind of dog it was. If they state a specific breed, barring some obvious reason for doubt found in those sources, we should pass that along. In many cases, however, only a more general category is found, perhaps "spaniel", "sled dog", "pit bull", or "lap dog". We do the best we can. So let's not get hung up on the term "breed". We just give as accurate a description of the category of dog it was based on what's in the sources. That is all.

Next, a fair summary of that source is not that the dog was a lab/GSD mix. If you read it, you will agree that a better summary is that the dog was a mixed breed of unknown parentage, but it looked as if it might have lab in it, and maybe GSD, as well as other things. This is what that source says, not that the dog was a lab/GSD mix. It is not as fair a summary of the source to simply call it a lab/GSD mix; it wasn't trying to say that's what it was so much as a mixed breed dog that looked like it might be a lab/GSD mix. That seems to e the best we can do so let's undo that last edit and leave it at that.

In some other cases, you may be right; donno; it depends on the case; I'd have to see it. For example, if the source had said that it was a Lab/GSD mix - that's all; well, we would say that, barring some rational reason for doubt (such as a video of a Basset hound killing the victim) in the sources. If you see any more cases like this where a source is written in such a way that it's explicitly stated or clearly implied that in the source the category was unclear or doubtful; well, we should say something like "unclear" or "doubtful" in the category box and send them to the description box for a more wordy, detailed summary. For example, if the source said "It looked kinda like a pitbull, but it was not clear, I couldn't be certain", the we might say "Unclear, see text" or some such, not simply "Pitbull" and that's that. The thing is to do a fair summary of the source(s) in a holistic way. Chrisrus (talk) 01:39, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

In response to "If they state a specific breed, barring some obvious reason for doubt found in those sources, we should pass that along," are we risking violating WP:RS where it says "The reporting of rumors has a limited encyclopedic value... Wikipedia is not the place for passing along gossip and rumors." Yes, we give the reader a fair summary of what the sources say, but all the evidence suggests that the sources are not reliable for identifying types of dogs. Wikipedia guidelines say we should not use news media for statements that are unreliable. This has come up repeatedly on these talk pages. Should we query the Reliable Sources noticeboard to see if third-party editors can lend an unbiased eye?

Regarding the lab/GSD issue: I don't see the difference between these news sources saying a dog is a lab/GSD mix and saying a dog is a mixed breed that looks like a mix of lab and GSD. How do you think any of these determinations are being made? In almost all of these cases it is based on the way it looks. For example, look at Ja'Marr Tiller. He was killed by 2 stray dogs that were called lab/GSD mixes. Do you really think that someone knew the exact parentage of those 2 stray dogs? Also see Elijah Rackley. He was killed by a stray chow mix. How do you think they determined that stray was chow mix? It is all based on appearance, just like in the lab/GSD case in questions. There are tons more examples like this (80% of the cases on the page). So, in summary, I agree with you. We should not be reporting that dog as a "lab/GSD mix." But we should have a consistent policy across the whole article and not make a special exception for just one case. Onefireuser (talk) 02:58, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

In the case of Ja'Marr Tiller, that's a bit different because the source for the Alyssa Raye attack is clearly worded in such a way as to say that they don't want to give the impression that lab/gsd mix is anything but an educated guess at best. The source that calls the dogs in the Ja'Marr Miller case lab/GSD mixes doesn't express any doubt about it in so many words. However, it does say that they were strays, and so you're right, how could they know? That's reasonable doubt. If you were to call that "mixed breed - see text", and then explained in the description the reason for the doubt; i.e.: them being strays and therefore of unknown parentage, I'd see that as doing the best we can.

In the Elijah Rackley case - check it and see - it neither expresses doubt nor says they'd been strays. Coincidentally, I used to know a Chow/lab mix. Lovely dog named Kirby that belong to some good neighbors when I lived in DC. There was no doubt what Kirby was because we knew his parents. So just because that Elijah Riackley dog was called a Chow-lab mix doesn't make me think that it must have been determined by just looking at it and guessing, because some such dogs are not so called for the reason you give; sometimes there is no reasonable doubt that a chow/Lab mix is a chow/Lab mix, and the dog in the Elijah Rackley attack seems to have been just like Kirby in that way because we don't see any clear sign of reasonable doubt in the source. So in that case, I think we should just call the dog that in that upfront way that implies that the source seemed sure about it. Chrisrus (talk) 06:02, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there is a tiny percentage of "designer dogs" in this country. But do you really think that most of the dogs on this page are designer mixes? Most of the dogs on this page are the result of poor ownership and have bred on their own. Your Kirby is very different from these dogs. In any case, the Elijah Rackley dog is not described as a Chow/Lab mix. If it were a designer mix, as you assert, what is it mixed with? And yes, I did check the reference, which apparently you did not do. It does not say anything about it being a Chow/lab mix; it just says Chow mix. The whole article is about how stray dogs, including this one, are a problem in the county:

"The family had apparently taken the stray dog under it's wing, a Chow-mix they named Ariel. "

"NewsChannel 9 uncovers another case involving stray dogs that attacked children in McMinn County"

"the county is overrun with wild, stray animals"

No reasonable, neutral reader could say that this is reliable evidence that they new the parentage of the dog.

When you say "them being strays and therefore of unknown parentage," how does that inform the way we should handle dogs that are being identified only by visual appearance by police, animal control, etc? That implies it is done visually and not by known parentage, especially when there are conflicting breed designations. Do you really think that most of the dogs on this page are of known parentage? Onefireuser (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that research. It's different from the Ellyssa Peterson dog because the sources don't overtly express uncertainty, although it says that it had been a stray. So how could they have been so sure? I bet it had a blue tongue, like Kerby. That's just a guess, of course, but there are some mixed breeds that clearly contain one type or breed clearly prodominates and that might explain why no doubt is expressed in that source as it is with the Peterson dog. Chrisrus (talk) 04:25, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I think I understand your position now. Although I still don't completely agree. Yes, people like to say that because a dog has a blue tongue it must be part Chow. But that is incorrect. See http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/dogsbreed/blacktongue.htm for examples. The bottom line is, even if people think they are confident in identifying a mixed-breed dog, the scientific literature tells us that is a false confidence. So when our sources appear confident in identifying mixed-breed dogs, all it tells us is that our sources are not WP:RS when it comes to the specific question of breed. Onefireuser (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, but I hesitate to give each other carte blanche to label all stray dogs "unknown-see text". After all, most people could probably identify a stray dog as a Basset Hound. It doesn't take much training or experience to learn to tell a spitz-type from a scenthound from a sighthound. In the one which I thought you were going to restore from your undo, the way it was phrased was like "donno", looked as if it might have been a lab/GSD". Based on your research into Ariel, it seems to have been phrased as if it were generally agreed by everyone involved that that was what Ariel obviously was. My fairest summary of what this this source, (as described above) "Apparent chow mix" . That way, we warn the reader that the following description is to describe its morphology, only. That's the best I can do with the evidence provided. We should check for more sources. Chrisrus (talk) 02:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, and if we start labeling all stray dogs "unknown-see text," then how would we handle the large number of dogs for which the owners, police, animal control, and neighbors all report different breeds? Those inconsistencies imply that the identification is based on visual appearance rather than known parentage. That would lead us down a path of having to say that we only occasionally have encyclopedia-worthy sources to document breed identification. Onefireuser (talk) 13:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, I wouldn't want to make any hard and fast rules without seeing the specific case. The important thing is, we should give as fair a summary of the source(s) as possible. If something seems amiss, it should be dealt with reasonably. Next, I'm not so sure there are that many such cases as you seem to be. There are some, but maybe not really all that many, so let's not overstate the problem. And also, they are not all the same. For example, if one source were to call a dog, I donno for instance a Mackenzie River husky, and another just simply called it a husky, another said sled dog, and a very furry spitz-type, in a case like that, those are not mutually exclusive or contradictory or in disagreement. All those phrases could be all true at the same time. On the other hand, if there are cases where, just to use an extreme example, one says the a dog was a greyhound, and another said it was a fox terrier. That's mutually exclusive, so something's not right. So, in such cases, we might say "Disputed - see text". The point is, go with the fairest summary, holistically. Chrisrus (talk) 23:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. We should go with the most accurate summary that is reliably sourced. Onefireuser (talk) 01:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

CDC recommendations for dog attack prevention

Why is this green chart in the lead? It belongs in the body of the article, but certainly not in the lead. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

It certainly seems reasonable to move it. Onefireuser (talk) 01:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)