articles For Deletion/Double-Nosed Andean Tiger Hound

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Sandstein 12:59, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Double-nosed Andean tiger hound

Double-nosed Andean tiger hound (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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A pseudo-breed, just some obscure urban legend (or, more accurately, a rural one). Even the page's creator said "It sure looks like a hoax" [1]. The only marginally sourced information in this is that that some dogs with split noses have allegedly been found in various places in South America, (first claimed sighting in 1913, by "a British adventurer") and there are photos that purport to show them (though these would be easy to create with GIMP or Photoshop – I could do it myself, and I'm not very good). The article's own text says it all: "No kennel club recognizes the Double-nosed Andean Tiger Hound, nor Andean Tiger Hounds in general, as a specific breed." So, "there's no there there" as the poem goes, nothing of encyclopedic substance or lasting notability. The two sources are very weak. The first is a BBC News story that's just a "gee-whiz, a dog that looks like it has two noses!" entertainment fluff piece with no concrete, encyclopedia-worthy information in it. The second is a cannibalized regurgitation of the BBC bit at Daily Mail, a categorically unreliable tabloid listed at WP:PUS. I found a third via the Wayback Machine [2], that has a passing mention in another fluff story. All of these date to 2007 or later, and if there were really a dog breed to write about, an entire decade to so is more than enough time for something substantial to arise.

Almost everything in this article is unsourced opinion, supposition, and dubious assertions, including even the idea that there is a breed of dog with this feature (rather than, say, a mutation popping up here and there, perhaps because of the founder effect and a genetic bottleneck among dogs in a particular area). If this unsourced stuff is deleted, nothing substantial remains. Our dog breed articles rely (except in the cases of a few crappy stubs which we clean up or delete, as appropriate) on highly reliable sources that catalogue in detail all of the world's known dog breeds and varieties/types, their history, their breed stability and recognition status, their features, etc. No such thing as an "Andean tiger hound" (much less a double-nosed one) appears in these references. Nor has any organisation surfaced (in English, Spanish, or Brazilian Portuguese) claiming to have established such a breed, nor any conservation or governmental group claiming the existence of such dogs as a feral population. The .es and .pt Wikipedias have no article on this, and the only other ones (.fi, .ja) appear to be based on the .en one. I don't bring any alleged breed article to AfD unless I'm damned certain it's not encyclopedic material (established, confirmed breeds may be inherently notable, since they'll appear in non-trivial detail in numerous high-quality sources).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wiki: Articles for deletion/Log/2018 November 12. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 05:41, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bolivia-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 06:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 06:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete That is almost a cryptid article, and a particularly badly sourced one at that (...what is that Daily Mail ref doing there?) Unreliable material, garnished with lots of possibles and maybes. This is not encyclopedic material. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:43, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • And a cryptid article would be okay (Bigfoot, Yeti) if there were proper sourcing. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:23, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This story is way weird, but yes, the BBC article substantiates notability. Blashford-Snell is a real person. Issues with the article that don't rise to the level of deletion (e.g., the use of unencyclopedic language) should be dealt with on the page, not here. FOARP (talk) 14:34, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @FOARP: A single article cannot establish notability (even if the coverage in it were not trivial, which it is in this case). See WP:GNG: in-depth coverage in multiple, independent reliable sources is required. PS: No one questioned anything about Blashford-Snell, and his existence is irrelevant to this AfD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:23, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    But it's not a single article that descirbes this - a search on Google Books turns up multiple hits e.g. 1 2 3. Pointing out that Blashford Snell is a real person was just because the story seemed fake, but it doesn't appear to be. FOARP (talk) 15:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Of the two we can read online, they are trivial mentions; the first in a "bathroom book", the second in an obsolete source with false information (what little we know about the specimens examined so far is that it does not in fact have two noses but a strip of regular skin between its nostrils). So, both sources are unreliable. I feel like I need state the obvious and cite a central policy: "It exists" is not and never has been a rationale for creating an article here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    So, you are concluding that the source is unreliable based on original research? Or is there a source for nose not being divided? In which case you had better cite it here. And this is not a case of "it exists", because the sources substantiate that the subject has received "significant coverage". FOARP (talk) 19:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    You seem to be confused. WP:NOR applies to article content, not analysis of source materials in internal discussions, or it would not be possible for us to evaluate sources at all. Yes, of course there's a source for it not actually having two noses but a strip of skin between its nostrils, or else why would (or even could) I have mentioned this? If you've not actually read the grand total of three tiny sources provided in the article (only two now present – the Times one got lost somewhere along the way), then I think you should do so before posting further in this AfD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    What you're saying is: you actually have a source about this animal that discusses it in sufficient detail that you can tell us, based on its disclosure, that it doesn't actually have two noses. I'm curious what this source is, because it would seem to be very useful for weighing the notability of this article. Can you tell us what this source is, please? FOARP (talk) 11:40, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I decline, per WP:LMGTFY (which was written to address precisely the tedious, snarky, and not-actually-clever antics you are pulling here). The material isn't substantial (about this dog) anyway, just a passing mention. Worse, some of it is clearly derived from our own article, verging on a copy-paste, so we can't use it as a source, per WP:CIRCULAR.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    You know when you have problems with multiple editors, editors who do not actually care about this article but instead only came here to assess it as part of AfD, the problem may not actually lie with the editors. You said this source exists and is relevant to this article (specifically, you believe it disproves the content of the article), but you don't actually want to share it - that's not a WP:LMGTFY situation, that's a situation where you just don't want to have to actually substantiate what you're saying. FOARP (talk) 14:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    C'mon, man, it's already right here on this page and takes about 15 seconds to find via Google: [3].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:01, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    If there were multiple similar articles in sources reliable for the context (not the Daily Mail) that weren't simply duplicates of each other there might be enough to establish notability. This is someone connecting an isolated abnormality to a single unsubstantiated report from 1913. --tronvillain (talk) 19:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • PS: This story isn't "way weird" at all. It's quite routine for random mutations to pop up in limited gene pools. That doesn't make them notable. They become notable (e.g. Manx cat) when there's lots of substantial coverage of them. The very fact that some people mistakenly think this is "way weird" is why there are keep !votes here. People are reluctant to delete "nifty-looking" stuff.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep (changed to merge and redirect, see discussion further down page). To the book sources linked above (including Fawcett's original description) we can add that it has an entry in Breverton's Phantasmagoria. I don't know whether or not this dog actually exists. That isn't the question. Nor is whether or not the sources are "scientific". The actual question for AfD is whether the reports of the dog have risen to the level of notability. When a report first made in 1913 is still being discussed in books published a century later, I would say that it had so risen. SpinningSpark 01:10, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, but that doesn't conform to any notability standard (or other keep rationale) on Wikipedia; you're pulling a WP:ITSINTERESTING. Non-trivial coverage in multiple sources is required. We have zero non-trivial coverage. By your rationale, every weird thing mentioned by some "adventurer" a hundred years ago that was also later trivially regurgitated in a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" blurb, and had passing mention in a news story, auto-qualifies for an encyclopedia article even though we can't write anything certain or meaningful about it other than someone said they saw it, and even though it has no lasting significance of any kind. It's not really distinct from the reasoning used to try to keep garage band articles because they played a show at a state music festival and got mentioned in a local newspaper and on a local TV show. No one has made an argument to delete based on whether sources are scientific, nor on whether the dog exists or not (WP has articles on many non-existent things – for which there are multiple instances of in-depth coverage in independent reliable sources). Rather, the majority of claims in the article are not sourced, and when pared down to nothing but the sourceable ones, there is nothing encyclopedic left, and nothing that indicates notability: only that the dog was first stated to have been seen by someone specific back when, and has been sighted later, and some people have produced what they claim are pictures. That's not encyclopedia material, it's trivia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Breverton's Phantasmagoria can in no sense be considered a reliable source for a claim about a real world breed of dog existing. It might be reliable in some other context, but not this one. --tronvillain (talk) 19:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Delete and redirect to Percy Fawcett. All of the mentions appear to be trivial outside of fringe sources, and there's not even an "Andean Tiger Hound" page to redirect to. --tronvillain (talk) 18:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - looks to be sourced well enough and there's no end to the number of mentions on google search, whether it's ITV News or the Canine Information Library. This is a notable entry. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:46, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  Did you read the above? "Sourced well enough" in what way? Show us how it is sourced well enough. The two "sources" you have provided are not usable. The first is trivial (though repeated) mention in an unreliable blog/wiki (appears to be WP:UGC) that has very clearly cribbed from our own article (WP:CIRCULAR) and the weak sources we have. The second is also passing mention – less than a sentence. It also makes assumptive claims (e.g., that it is a breed and has been subject to intentional selective breeding) which do not agree with a single other source we have so far, and which does not cite any sources of its own. A third [4], which you added to the article, is also a UGC site (though articles are signed) and which in this case is obviously based on our own material. There's just no substance available to us from which to build an encyclopedic article, sorry. I considered a merge to pachón Navarro, but we have no reliable source for any relationship between these varieties (neither of which are actually breeds). All we have is an unsourced assertion, then other websites repeating our assertion back at us.
  PS: Worse yet, what little info we have on the purported photos says they're all from the same family of dogs. We literally do not even have any reliable evidence that this is population of dogs, rather than one mutation that was passed down to two offspring, and which happens to be in the same large general area of the earth that someone generations ago reported seeing a split-nosed dog. It's just meaningless, and it transgresses WP:NOR policy.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:50, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  That is your opinion. I don't see either one being a blog. Even if something has only one initial source, if every newspaper picks it up and runs with there would be overwhelming notability. We have veterinarians saying it is a variety of dog. Sorry that I take their word over yours. Is this a great article, no. Is there enough notability to include it, yes. If there are multiple authoritative sources saying they have doubts about the dog, then by all means include it. Nothing is stopping you from adding that to the article. I don't particularly care what happens to this article and whether it gets 50 keep or remove votes. I just happened upon this and I gave my opinion on it's inclusion at wikipedia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:55, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  That wasn't a meaningful comment. The facts about what coverage we have (verging on none) isn't an "opinion". You can't hand-wave this away. "I just happened upon this and I gave my opinion" – yes, without anything to back it up. "[I]f every newspaper picks it up and runs with [it] there would be overwhelming notability" has not happened. No one questioned whether it is a variety of dog (what else would it be? a chocolate pie?); that has nothing do with the AfD question. "I don't particularly care what happens to this article" – then please stop making completely invalid arguments to keep it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:05, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  Meles meles SpinningSpark 15:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect Delete - such an anomaly exists per this book, this description by Dr Pippa Elliott (BVMS MRCVS, University of Glasgow), and this source by Dr. Leslie Ross (DVM) who stated: "To be technically correct, it is possible that designating the Double-nosed Andean Tiger Hound as a "breed" is premature. They may just be genetic anomalies within the general strain of Andean Tiger Hounds." ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 22:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC) Oh, there's also the Catalburun in Turkey, Pachon Navarro, and Andean Tiger Hound, all in with double noses. So is the Jackalope real? 😊 22:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @Atsme: what is your rationale for deletion? You have presented evidence that the dog exists and then voted delete. I don't follow your thinking. SpinningSpark 23:47, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Spinningspark: Hello. I saw a rationale for deletion when I read that. You say the dog, do you mean the one or several individual dogs someone said expressed this characteristic, or the description of a breed that the article explains is 1. not accepted and 2. struggles to assert notability, if that exists. The key point is that an anomaly, inconsistently expressed genetic quirk or whatever criteria is used, does not equal breed, because the 'undesirable' characteristics that occur in some breeds would invalidate their status. Please be polite in responses, I prefer that discussion not be personalised; I frequently remind myself (and others) the discussion is about content, not users. cygnis insignis 08:04, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Cygnis insignis: Impolite? What are you talking about? I politely asked for an explanation of a !vote I could not understand. You are the one making this personal. SpinningSpark 11:26, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Spinningspark: I didn't think it was, polite, you might consider how productive this thread was, replying as you did, to something you didn't understand, with the insistence you do not understand it, and that is the fault the user you are replying to, not you, who could have done something else and said nothing instead. It is redundant, at best. When I addressed the point I thought was being made at the outset, the substance of my post, you have decided to turn the tables on my incivility in flagging incivility instead, therefore "I am wounded, I am killed by death …" you win mate. Now about those points I raised, would you care to discuss that, are they understood? cygnis insignis 12:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Yeah, I'm just as confused. The sources he gave shows notability, especially with Dr Elliot. Plus he barbed about a jackalope which actually has it's own article here. Somewhat perplexing to be sure. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:54, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I think she's confused as well. She's now been through three different votes in successive edits. SpinningSpark 00:22, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Before you begin the character assassination, give me a chance to respond. The only target article I could think of for a redirect or merge would be Hound, and the pictures of dogs I've seen on the internet with that anomaly are not all hounds. Google dogs with a split nose. The context of this article as currently written misses the mark. The sources I cited above are not exactly RS, although the authors being veterinarians give it weight, but not necessarily as it relates to a breed of dog. I won't deny that it gave me pause at first because of the BBC article and the 2 vets but none of the other sources I found are RS that unequivocally establish the dog as a breed. The double-nose is an anomaly found in 3 different breed types as noted above, but I've since seen pictures of a German Shepherd puppy with a split nose. Should we have standalone articles about every anomaly that crops-up in various breeds of domestic and wild animals? I don't think so. Is it a hoax? Not the double nose part which is real but we need RS to verify everything else, including whether or not the double-nose is an inherited breed characteristic (genetic) and not just an anomaly, the latter of which is probably why the double-nosed dog is so rare. Is there a recognized breed called the Andean tiger hound? Not that I could find. Tigers are found in India, Nepal, Indonesia, Russia, and China. Bolivia is in South America where this dog was spotted. It sounds like a hoax that went viral because when you look at the videos of the dogs with the split noses, they look like other recognizable breeds or crossbreeds/hybrids/muts. I know people today who would jump at the chance to go snipe hunting. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 00:35, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Now its getting interesting and there may be a solution in that, a section or even article that discusses those points and linkable from those who look that way, for whatever reason. cygnis insignis 08:15, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki has an article on a witness, Percy Fawcett - Lieutenant Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett DSO was a British geographer, artillery officer, cartographer, archaeologist, and explorer of South America. Good god man, he held the Queen's commission!! So I am giving him credibility. There has been excellent use of WP:POL here, some of which I have not seen before. The issue comes down to WP:NOTABILITY - and the jury appears hung. May I recommend removing all uncited material, then reassessing what remains. William Harris • (talk) • 08:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I missed that, and have heard of him. Probably still living it up at that lost city after the disappearing act at Dead Horse Camp. cygnis insignis 09:05, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You may also be interested in its probable ancestor, the Tarsus Folknosed Dog from Turkey. There is also a hunting variant, the Turkish Pointer. That split-nosed dogs exist is beyond doubt - but are they notable? William Harris • (talk) • 09:15, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Any single one is too ugly for its own article, but I think the user above cracked that nut, they all get one article (or section, I don't really know about dogs, collectively, only dingos, found this delightful conversation linked at TOL). I've seen one, a rescue dog, it wasn't introduced as a breed by the sheepish looking owner, and I bit my tongue lest he split my nose. cygnis insignis 09:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just finished the second link, a fascinating area. If those studies are undertaken then there is much more to say in an article, an eternal problem, but the doubts and hypotheses expressed are notable, evidently. Just at a glance, and I know there is much that eludes me, I'll wait to read your opinion before making my mind up. cygnis insignis 09:57, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
William Harris, I recommend a closer examination of the sources regarding reliability. I read the Bulgarian journal article earlier but dismissed it as not a RS when I saw WP cited as a source. That’s what happens when anecdotal evidence gets published and spread over the internet - new dog breeds are born. We’ve established the split nose anomaly or genetic mutation/defect, and discovered that a select group of dog owners/breeders in Turkey have been breeding dogs for that characteristic (the split nose), which appears to have cropped up at one time or another in the English Pointer (possibly from in-breeding) as some sources have alluded to. From that, a small subgroup of split nosed dogs have been created, named Catalburun (Turkish Pointer) and maintained. We have no way of knowing the consistency in breeding that particular trait or how many puppies are culled from each litter because they don’t have split noses. The impact factor of the Bulgarian Journal you cited above is very low - they cite thebreedsofdogs.com (2011) and en.WP (2011) as references for the Andean tiger hound and a few other breed types that have the split nose characteristic. I also read a few other articles with circular refs to WP for the Andean tiger hound. Nothing I’ve seen so far has convinced me to change my iVote. I’m of the mind that mention of the split nose anomaly could be mentioned in the main breed type but not as stand alone articles. I just realized we have Pachón Navarro - I’m going to read it now and check sources. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 10:44, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are two articles, one from a journal and one from an international conference. You cannot dismiss the journal article, but you may dismiss those side issues where it cites Wikipedia, which are non-impacting. As for "impact factor" of the journal, spare me. That these dogs exist is beyond doubt. It is not my concern if these are recognized as breeds or not. Dogs with split noses exist in Turkey, which is my point. They are not a product of some "believe it or not" media release. William Harris • (talk) • 11:04, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I get your point but, ironically, this article actually is a product of both Ripley’s Believe It and Not and Breverton’s Phantasmagoria per the cited sources and the journal you mentioned is a circular reference to this article. 😅 Oh, well....I think we’ve got it worked out for the most part. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 12:30, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I knew there might be some hesitation about the low credibility of that journal, so I asked JzG for his opinion since he is well-versed in grading journals, and his response validated my initial thoughts that we can dismiss the journal based on the unreliable sources they’ve used. There’s no question that split-nose dogs exist - dogs with extra toes exist, as do bitches with extra nipples, all scientifically verifiable but does that alone make them a breed or worthy of inclusion as a standalone article, Extra-toed dogs, Extra-nippled bitches? There are a variety of animal breed types, color breeds, performance types, etc. - Palomino horse, Cutting horse, North American Piedmontese, hunting dog, and Double-nosed Pointers which is what we have here; therefore, with reference to the double-nose (or split nose because it’s only one dog nose) we can either delete, merge/delete or #redirect the stand alone articles. I would support a merge/delete, but not a standalone based on what I’ve seen for sources. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 11:42, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Whether the journal article is WP:RELIABLE or not is irrelevant because I am not proposing its use for a reference on Wiki English. Its inclusion here is to demonstrate that these type of dogs exist, no more. William Harris • (talk) • 12:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well look what I found: Double-nosed Pointers. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 10:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I could support a merged article covering split-nosed dogs in general. I'll change my vote if you're volunteering to write it (or anyone else). SpinningSpark 11:47, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sure - I doubt we’ll have any trouble finding good collaborators. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 12:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and redirect to a new general article per suggestion by Atsme. SpinningSpark 12:17, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect as above. Leo1pard (talk) 15:48, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect. Blashford Snell is talking about the same animal that the Daily mail featured, which is a mutation with zero credible evidence of descent from this species which, in turn, has zero credible evidence to substantiate its existence. This boils down to a single story of an unusual mutation referenced to a minor legend. Of course it's bollocks, but it's not notable bollocks. Guy (Help!) 22:05, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect per WP:ATD and per WP:MIDDLEGROUND JC7V (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep there are sufficient sources for a brief article. Whether the breed actually exists is irrelevant. Unicorns don't exist, but are notable anyway. Note: I came across this article while reading about Percy Fawcett, the English explorer who first reported the breed and is the subject of a recent film. There were 3,879 views in the last 30 days. TFD (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, TFD - we have not established it as a breed - there are no verifiable sources that even come close to it. What we have are circular references, multiple media mentions of Percy Fawcett's sighting, some anecdotal reports on dog message boards, wishful thinking by a few owners in possession of fewer than 200 dogs they use to hunt, passing mention in a few books wherein most refer to the Fawcett sighting, and sensationalism over the mutation, which is typically caused by a cleft palate so it can be a fatal defect, depending on the individual dog. That may explain why there are so few. None of the aforementioned qualifies the fictitious or anecdotal persona of the dog as notable per GNG. There is more published about the associated defect, a cleft palate, in RS than about the sighting, and when it is mentioned in RS, it's to debunk it. Pachón Navarro suffers the same lack of RS as does this article, and so does Double-nosed Pointers, which is one target for the redirect, and another is Percy Fawcett. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 00:16, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So the article can say that Colonel Percy Fawcett sent to map the Brazil-Bolivia border for the Royal Geographical Society in 1906, claimed to have seen the animal. No evidence has been found to support the existence the breed, although various sightings have been reported. Your comments on breed are semantic because it implies that the term can only refer to proven breeds. We can refer to fictitious breeds as well. We are also able to refer to fictitious people and events. TFD (talk) 00:39, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'll admit, I started off thinking along the same lines that you are now, and then I did the research. My argument is simple - it is all about a bifid nose, more commonly called a split or double-nose, and it happens in humans as well. It is typically associated with cleft palates. Anecdotal evidence says some of the dogs don't have cleft palates, but there is not one RS that verifies any of the breed information as anything but anecdotal. Google "bifid nose in spaniels" and look at the images. It happens in multiple breeds - and it's only rare because few dogs survive the cleft palate. It doesn't make any sense for serious breeders who are trying to breed top quality dogs while maintaining a breed standard to purposely breed defects into their bloodlines. The surgery to correct the problem is very expensive - not all dogs survive it - and the few dogs that do survive from birth are indeed rare but that doesn't make it a breed. The misinformation about these bifid pointers is rampant on the internet, and it's born primarily of myth and misinformation. Consider the sources and notice the keywords in the few articles by authors who took the bait hook, line and sinker. Key terms: extremely rare, and not all of these dogs will sport the split nose characteristic of the breed. It speaks volumes. Having a bifid nose does not make it a breed, and as I said above, the bifid nose on a dog has far more RS available that are backed by science than the fairytales being spread about these bifid dogs - ^{referring to the "double-nosed Andean tiger hound". 21:26, 19 November 2018 (UTC) Atsme✍🏻📧} 01:34, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Atsme, we do not know what if anything Fawcett or others saw. Probably unicorns are just a garbled story of rhinos, but it is still a separate topic, not a redirect. Having an article about a topic does not mean it actually exists. TFD (talk) 06:15, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• comment 'making a film about Fawcett', also did not know that, and pondered on it weighting discussion to keep. People looking that up will be spun around on the spot at this article, it is a dead end, but there seems to be an opportunity for them to be redirected to … Bifid dog [eep!], Velopharyngeal insufficiency (Canis)? I wouldn't know, obviously, but want to know what the target of a merge and redirect is? And where is the twist on the classic gag, "My dog has two noses … " cygnis insignis 06:05, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • That could work in theory (though "Bifid dog" doesn't make sense; that would mean a dog split in two). However, we can't just go create articles on every medical condition in every species. They have to be independently notable as subtopics, or account for so much material at a main article that a WP:SUMMARYSTYLE split is required for article-length reasons. Otherwise, they get merged, too. E.g., we have no Albinism (canine) or [insert 10,000 more examples], but we do have Hip dysplasia (canine), about which the real world has written a tremendous amount in reliable sources.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:49, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, this is exhausting, I wish I'd made up my mind in the first forty five seconds. I'm now thinking delete and recreate a redirect when the N of the condition is established in the target: while not being the business of this discussion, users able to establish its scope and make a decent start of it (if it is notable) are present and primed. cygnis insignis 17:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect is fine by me (nominator), as long as it's pruned to the material from actually reliable sources and any unsourced or dubious-source, speculative crap is removed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:43, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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