Dog breed varieties

[katiermullen]

Please see discussion here on how to include dog breed varieties: https://github.com/rando2/VBO_scrapeclubs/issues/2

• Are dog breed varieties children of breed?

• More generally, what is the definition of "variety" at it relates to "breed"?

• Is the relationship between "variety" and "breed" consistent across species or do we need to define "variety" by species?

[franknic]

Apologies for not responding sooner! Imke and I will try to discuss this before Friday's meeting. Unfortunately, leading authorities tackle this very differently. For example, the AKC lists Dachshund as a breed and seems to regard all the varieties within that breed as children of breed Dachshund. The FCI also has just Dachshund as a breed, and 9 different explicitly-named varieties (as mentioned by Katie): https://www.fci.be/en/nomenclature/DACHSHUND-148.html In contrast, the UK KC has 6 (!) different varieties of Dachshund, each listed as a breed: https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/search/breeds-a-to-z/#D.

[LeroyGregoire]

To complete on this, the use of varieties is not really consistent across species. Even within dogs, and within organizations the use of it can be blurry. For instance, FCI consider long haired and smooth faced Berger des Pyrenees as two different breeds while you can find long haired and smooth faced dogs in the same litter.

[franknic]

Thank you, Gregoire. For the benefit of everyone else, I should note that in addition to his extensive work on DADIS with FAO, Gregoire is a dog geneticist who has done some pioneering research in that area. He is, therefore, very well suited to provide feedback on the VBO dog entries (plus other non-DADIS species). Gregoire: the overall VBO strategy is to use the two-tier (breed_country and transboundary) DADIS structure wherever possible for non-DADIS species, realising that this structure will probably need some enhancement/alteration for some species. Your feedback on dogs and cats and other non-DADIS species will be much appreciated.