Wikipedia:Peer review/Bonn–Oberkassel dog/archive1

Bonn–Oberkassel dog

Howdy, y'all. I am usually a history and archaeology editor, but this puppy goes a fair bit more into biology territory than I am normally used to, so I thought I would it open it up for folks to look at; I want to bring this to FAC eventually. :)

Thank you all so much for your time, Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:10, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Cool article :). Thanks for your work so far. My first impression is that it's too difficult to read in places.

• The first sentence equates the dog to its remains. Would the following not make more sense: "The Bonn–Oberkassel dog (German: Hund von Bonn–Oberkassel) is a Late Paleolithic dog whose skeletal remains were found buried alongside two humans."
  • Fixed. -G
• I would generally avoid paragraphs above 125/150 words for readability
  • Fixed. -G
• mandible --> lower jaw
  • Fixed. -G
• A canine mandible (...) Geological Collections. --> very long sentence. Maybe better: "The dog's lower jaw was first thought to be from a wolf and placed into museum storage with the human remains, while the other bones from the dog were placed into the university's Geological Collections." Or something like that?
  • Fixed. -G
• Osteoarthritis (...). Again a difficult sentence. Could it be simplified as ""Osteoarthritis, along with signs of enamel defects, missing teeth, and gum disease, show that the dog had a distemper infection as a puppy but survived despite low chances without help."?
  • Fixed. -G

If you read over the article to make it come closer to WP:MTAU, I'm happy to give a deeper read at a later time. Feel free to ping. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

• Thirty-two identifiable bone fragments have been identified as portions of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog --> I think identifiable can be removed here, as it's repeating identified.
  • Fixed. -G
• Second individual --> individual sounds like a human. Would second dog be a better heading?
  • Good idea, done. - G
• mesiodistal --> wiktionary link? wiktionary also has jargon, but may be bit clearer. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I realized that the specific metric measured isn't really necessary here, because what's important is that the tooth was smaller than expected. - G

  Hi @Generalissima: ping, in case you hadn't seen my feedback :). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:33, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

  • Oh! Thank you very much, I had seen it and forgotten about it. Let me do some work here. :) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 14:48, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
  • @Femke: Okay! I think I have removed a satisfactory amount of jargon. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:24, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Brilliant! As promised, a more in-depth review:

• The lead says twice it's a Late/Upper Paleolithic dog. Can we omit the second one? I got mildly confused about the different wording.
• I find this sentence a bit awkward: "The 32 identifiable bone fragments attributed to the Bonn–Oberkassel dog have been used to estimate a number of the animal's characteristics.". Can it be simplified? I'm not quite sure ChatGPT's suggestion is better: The 32 bone fragments identified from the Bonn-Oberkassel dog have been analysed to estimate various characteristics of the animal. It has fewer verbs at least.
• The sentences in the lead and body about the puppy surviving don't quite work. You state that the disease is usually fatal without help in para 2, and talk about the help in para 3. I think it works best to combine these ideas in paragraph 2.
  • Perhaps this text works: Despite the high likelihood of death without assistance, the puppy survived, likely due to human care. People probably cleaned the puppy and gave it water, even though there was no practical benefit to them.. Is it completely certain there was no practical benefit to the humans? Or is there no apparent benefit to them?
• It is unknown why the dog died --> how the dog died?
• ..(), are all unknown and heavily debated among scholars. If it's heavily debated, there is some knowledge right. The sentence may flow better without "are all unknown".
• interment is a difficult word. Can it be replaced by burial? If not, please link
• baculum?
• but various other pieces of the animal were stored in the University of Bonn's Geological Collections without clear provenance --> I don't understand what "without clear provenance" means in this sentence.
• contour découpés ?
• .. duplicate examples .. --> all without any duplicates in the skeleton, better?
• usually closing at an age of 8 months --> is this in modern dogs? Are these fully comparable given the different diets and all of modern pets?
• with an estimated fatality rate of 75% in puppies --> would it help to say domestic or modern puppies here? Are these again statistics from modern animals?
• The start of the condition in the Bonn–Oberkassel dog likely began around a month before death --> The condition likely began around a month before death. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:36, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
• Most typical causes of elbow osteoarthritis in modern young dogs are unlikely to have created the bone spurs seen in the Bonn–Oberkassel dog --> I don't understand.
• a sample of 544 wild dogs and wolves failed to find a single example of horizontal enamel damage, characteristic of the disease in puppies --> in a study of 544 wild dogs and wolves, not one had the horizontal enamel damage typical of the disease in puppies.. May sound better?