Woof

It was a while ago now, but readers with elephantine memories will recall the Dewey blog's inaugurating a series of posts on The Great Reference Sources that, here at the Manor, we find indispensable. We kicked off with a eulogy to Ethnologue, and then ... nothing. Until today. For today is the day we chow down on the favorite bone that is The complete dog book, 19th ed. (Howell Book House, 1997). The 20th edition is out in a couple of weeks' time, and boy! we're in a lather about that, lemme tell you. This is the official guide to every breed of dog admissible for registration by the American Kennel Club (AKC), which maintains the largest registry of purebred dogs in the United States. The AKC was founded in 1884; the forerunner of The complete dog book was first published in 1929 as Charles Topping Inglee's Pure bred dogs: The breeds and standards as recognized by the American Kennel Club (G. H. Watt). The Dewey editors make sure that the main groups of dogs identified at 636.72–636.75 Specific breeds and groups of dogs correspond with those recognized by the AKC: sporting dogs (e.g., retrievers and spaniels), hounds, working dogs (e.g., the Doberman pinscher), terriers, toys, non-sporting dogs (e.g., bulldogs), and herding dogs (e.g., collies). In the UK, the Kennel Club (KC) maintains the main dog registry, and similarly groups breeds into seven broad categories that are roughly comparable to those identified by the AKC. The major differences are simply terminological: the KC uses "gundogs" instead of the AKC's "sporting dogs"; "pastoral" instead of "herding"; and "utility" instead of "non-sporting." One source of possible confusion is the difference in the usage of "sporting dogs." In the UK, this term is used to refer collectively to dogs in the KC's three categories of gundogs (a.k.a. sporting dogs in the USA), hounds, and terriers; this usage is reflected in the instruction to "Class here ... sporting dogs (United Kingdom)" that is given at 636.75 Sporting dogs, hounds, terriers, rather than at 636.752 Sporting dogs.