Year of the Dog 戌
Yang Earth branch · 19:00–21:00
The first call when it's bad.
In popular Chinese zodiac tradition, Dog years are associated with loyalty, honesty and a strong sense of what is fair. The shadow of that loyalty is anxiety: a watchfulness that does not know when to stand down.
Year of the Dog: personality traits
Popular Chinese zodiac tradition, written plainly. For reflection, not prediction.
Character
If you were born in a Dog year, the popular tradition makes you the guardian of the cycle: loyal, honest and quick to notice a wrong. Dogs have a strong sense of what is fair and a hard time leaving an injustice alone. They are the first call when something goes wrong, and they answer. The sign is associated with principle, protectiveness and a plain decency that other people lean on. A Dog will forgive most things and forget none of them.
In love and friendship
In love the Dog is faithful, protective and sometimes anxious, watching for the threat that is not there. It gives loyalty first and expects it back, and a betrayal, even a small one, cuts deep. The tradition pairs the Dog with the Tiger and the Horse in the Fire Three Harmony and gives it the Rabbit as its six-harmony partner, the gentle one who calms the watch. Friends of a Dog have someone in their corner for life and someone who will tell them, gently, when they are wrong.
At work and with money
At work the Dog does well wherever trust and principle are the job: law, medicine, public service, security, teaching, advocacy, the running of anything that needs to be run honestly. It is a good colleague and a better ally, and it dislikes politics, spin and being asked to look the other way. Money is handled responsibly and given away readily; the tradition does not call the Dog rich, and the Dog does not mind.
The growing edge
The shadow of loyalty is anxiety: a watchfulness that does not know when to stand down, guarding so hard that the Dog forgets to enjoy what it is guarding. Worry becomes pessimism and pessimism becomes a habit. The growing edge is rest: trusting that the gate will hold for an evening, and that the people it protects can also look after it. The tradition honours the Dog and would like it to sleep.
The five kinds of Dog
Each year pairs the Dog branch with one of five Heavenly Stem elements, so the same animal comes in five flavours across the sixty-year cycle. Popular tradition reads them like this; the hub explains why the branch element never changes.
- Wood Dog · 1994 →
- The Wood Dog is the most cooperative and the least anxious, loyalty that trusts the pack to hold.
- Fire Dog · 1946, 2006 →
- The Fire Dog is the boldest, charismatic and quick to act on a principle, the guardian who goes on the attack.
- Earth Dog · 1958, 2018 →
- The Earth Dog is the most practical and patient, fairness applied one case at a time.
- Metal Dog · 1970, 2030 →
- The Metal Dog is the most uncompromising, principled to the bone and not easily talked round.
- Water Dog · 1982 →
- The Water Dog is the most sensitive and the most forgiving, watchful but softer with the people it guards.
Dog years
- 1946Fire Dog
- 1958Earth Dog
- 1970Metal Dog
- 1982Water Dog
- 1994Wood Dog
- 2006Fire Dog
- 2018Earth Dog
- 2030Metal Dog
The popular zodiac year starts at Lunar New Year, not 1 January. Born in January or early February, check the boundary with the finder on the hub. BaZi turns the year at Li Chun instead, which the hub also explains.
Dog compatibility
Commonly cited lucky numbers: 3, 4, 9; popular material, no canonical source. What the three structures are, and why they come before any compatibility chart, is on the hub. A full match reads all four pillars, not the year branch alone. Run a real match →
The branch 戌
- Branch
- 戌 xū
- Polarity
- Yang
- Branch element
- Earth
- Direction
- West-northwest
- Season
- Late autumn, Northern Hemisphere
- Chinese double-hour
- 19:00–21:00
戌 xū is the yang Earth branch of late autumn and the double-hour of early evening. It is one of the four Earth branches that close a season, the ground storing the last of the year's Fire. The Dog guards the gate; 戌 is the branch that completes the Fire Three Harmony with 寅 and 午.
Famous people born in Dog years
Verified birth dates from public records, assigned by the Lunar New Year boundary. Tap any chart to see the whole thing.
- Michael JacksonAmerican singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer
- George W. BushPresident of the United States from 2001 to 2009
- Winston ChurchillBritish statesman, soldier and writer
- Bill ClintonPresident of the United States from 1993 to 2001
- Elvis PresleyAmerican singer and actor
- Yuri GagarinSoviet pilot and cosmonaut, first human in space
- Mother TeresaAlbanian-Indian Catholic nun and missionary
- MadonnaAmerican singer, songwriter, and actress
Beyond the Dog
Your year animal is one of eight characters in a BaZi chart, and not the one a reading is built around. The full chart is free.