Lucky numbers
3 4 9
Most recent year
2018
Branch position
11
The dog in the cycle
The Year of the Dog is the eleventh sign in the twelve-year Chinese zodiac cycle and holds the earthly branch 戌 (xū). Dog years are 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, 2030 and 2042. Its fixed element is Earth and its polarity is yang. The cycle turns at the lunar new year, not on 1 January, and 2018 makes the point sharply. That Dog year did not open until 16 February, so a baby born on 1 February 2018 is a Rooster.
戌 (xū) covers the double-hour from 7pm to 9pm, the hour a household shuts its gate, and it sits west-northwest on the branch compass. The Great Race accounts for eleventh place with something close to an insult. The Dog was the strongest swimmer in the field and should have finished near the front, but it stopped in the river to play in the water and came home with only the Pig behind it. The story never questions that it could have won, which is why the telling reads as fond rather than harsh.
The element riding over the animal runs on its own ten-year cycle keyed to the last digit: 0 and 1 Metal, 2 and 3 Water, 4 and 5 Wood, 6 and 7 Fire, 8 and 9 Earth. 1994 was a Wood Dog and 2018 an Earth Dog, doubling Earth over a branch already made of it. 2030 will be a Metal Dog. 戌 is one of the four earth branches, 辰戌丑未, spaced evenly around the cycle at the close of each season, which puts the Dog on the hinge between autumn and winter.
- 狗 · gǒu
- 11 of 12
- Earth
- Yang
- 3, 4, 9
- 1, 6, 7
- Red, Green, Purple
- Rose, Cymbidium orchid
- East, South, Northeast
- Libra — unrelated systems, see below
Dog years, and the date each one starts
1934
from 14 Feb
1946
from 2 Feb
1958
from 18 Feb
1970
from 6 Feb
1982
from 25 Jan
1994
from 10 Feb
2006
from 29 Jan
2018
from 16 Feb
2030
from 3 Feb
2042
from 22 Jan
Each dog year runs from the date shown until the day before the next lunar new year. Born on 10 January 2018? You are not a dog; that year had not started yet. The full year table covers 1924 to 2044 if you need to check a different year.
What the tradition says about dog people
Chinese astrology puts loyalty first for Dog-year people and does not bury it under qualifications. Honesty follows, then a protectiveness the tradition describes as watching the door for people it has decided to keep. Sources read the sign as cautious and prudent, slow to trust and hard to shift once it has. A Dog in traditional descriptions is the one who notices that something is off and says so out loud, even when saying so costs something.
The stated faults are those same qualities left unattended. Caution reads as suspicion, and the tradition says a Dog can take years to let anyone past the first layer. Communication is named as the real weakness: the sign feels strongly and explains badly, which comes across as stubbornness. Older readings add a streak of anxiety, a habit of expecting the worst outcome and preparing for it. Sources also describe a preference for the background over any kind of attention. None of that describes a person born in 1982.
Why 3, 4, 9
The published set is 3, 4 and 9 lucky, with 1, 6 and 7 to avoid, and 4 on the lucky side is the part that stops people. 四 (sì) sits close to 死 (sǐ), death, and it is the digit Chinese buildings skip when they number their floors. No source explains why the Dog gets it anyway. The He Tu (河图) chart does not help either, since it pairs Earth with 5 and 10, the Dog's fixed element is Earth, and neither of those digits appears on the list.
3 and 9 are at least explicable in general terms. 三 (sān) echoes 生 (shēng), to live, though it also echoes 散 (sàn), to split, so it cuts both ways. 九 (jiǔ) is a homophone of 久 (jiǔ), long-lasting. The avoid list is harder to defend: 六 (liù) is normally read as lucky through 溜 (liū), smooth going, and yet 6 sits on the Dog's bad side. Sources disagree here too. chinesenewyear.net publishes the same 3, 4 and 9 but replaces the avoid numbers with 1, 7 and 8, which puts the most auspicious digit in Chinese culture on the Dog's unlucky list.
Lucky
3 4 9
Chinese number luck runs largely on homophones. 八 bā (8) sits close to 發 fā, to prosper; 四 sì (4) sits close to 死 sǐ, death. The Chinese numbers page works through the whole set.
Dog compatibility
Dog at work and in love
Dog — work and money
The jobs traditional lists give the Dog are the ones built on being trusted. Police work leads almost every version, followed by judge, counsellor, nurse, professor and priest. Politics appears, which sits oddly beside the rest until you read what the tradition means by it: the sign is placed there for a sense of duty rather than any talent for the game. Scientist and interior designer show up as well, on the reading that a Dog does careful work meant to hold up over time.
As an employee the tradition describes the Dog as the one who takes the task personally. That is meant as praise and it comes with a cost. Older readings warn that the sign burns itself out on work it believes in and quietly refuses work it does not. Ambition for its own sake is absent from the sketch entirely. A Dog is described as wanting the job done right more than done visibly, and the same texts note this is exactly how it gets passed over.
Dog — love and family
Chinese astrology reads the Dog as slow to start and hard to shake off. Traditional descriptions have the sign testing a partner well past the point most people would call the matter settled, then committing without reservation once the test is passed. Jealousy appears on the fault list, treated as loyalty pointed the wrong way. What the readings say a Dog cannot forgive is being lied to, and they mean about anything, including something small.
Its trine (三合) holds the Tiger and the Horse, 戌 with 寅 and 午, three branches spaced four apart around the twelve. The clash (六冲) is the Dragon, 戌 against 辰, six places away and directly opposite. That one repays a look, because 辰 and 戌 are both earth branches, so the tradition is setting two signs of the same material against each other rather than two opposites. The separate 六合 harmony joins 戌 with 卯, the Dog and the Rabbit, which is why the Rabbit turns up on compatibility lists the trine cannot account for.
The Libra question
Charts that pair the dog with Libra are matching the dog's earthly branch to the solar month it governs in the traditional calendar. That is a real correspondence inside Chinese timekeeping. It is not a claim that the two astrologies agree, because they were built in different places for different purposes and neither borrowed from the other. Treat it as a curiosity rather than a second opinion on your western sign.
Year of the Dog — frequently asked
3, 4 and 9, with 1, 6 and 7 on the avoid list. The 4 is genuinely unusual, since 四 (sì) is the digit Chinese speakers work hardest to keep out of phone numbers and addresses. Sources publish it for the Dog without giving a reason.
1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, 2030 and 2042, one every twelve years.
Because 辰 and 戌 sit six branches apart, directly opposite each other on the twelve-point circle, which is what 六冲 describes. Both are earth branches, so the opposition is not a quarrel between elements. It is a geometric relationship on a chart, and it says nothing about two actual people.
Your běn mìng nián is the year of your own zodiac animal, arriving every twelve years. Tradition counts it as an unlucky year rather than a lucky one, and the standard countermeasure is to wear red for its whole length, usually something given by a relative rather than bought for yourself. For Dogs the next one is 2030.
No. The label comes from matching the branch 戌 to the solar month it roughly covers, October, then reading off whichever western sign shares that stretch of the calendar. Chinese and western astrology have no common ancestor, so the pairing is a convenience for English-language readers and carries no meaning across.