Chinese zodiac
Dog
Dog — Xu, the 11th of the twelve earthly branches. It comes round every twelve years, each time with the next of the five elements, so the same animal and element meet again every sixty years.
The Dog is eleventh, and in the race story it is a strong swimmer that came in late because it stopped to play in the river. The folk explanation for its double hour, in the evening, is that it is when a house dog begins to keep guard; like most of these explanations it fits the pairing after the fact rather than accounting for it.
The Dog's earthly branch
The branch, Xu (戌), is older than the Dog and names more than a year: it is also one of the twelve double hours of the traditional day, a month of the Chinese solar year and a point of the compass.
- Branch
- Xu 戌The 11th of twelve. The animal is written 狗.
- Polarity
- YangPaired only with the yang stems, so every Dog year starts in an even-numbered calendar year.
- Element of the branch
- EarthThe Dog's own, the same every year. The element in the table below belongs to the year.
- Double hour
- 19:00–21:00Read today off the local clock. Traditionally kept by the sun, so noon fell in the middle of the Horse's double hour.
- Solar month opens
- 8 October 2026At Hanlu, Cold Dew, when the sun reaches 195°. Beijing time, that has been 8 or 9 October in every year from 1920 to 2026.
- Bearing
- 300°Between west and north, counting clockwise from the Rat at due north.
- Triad
- Tiger, Horse, DogThe three branches four apart, which the tradition groups under Fire.
- Opposite
- DragonSix places on: the opposite hour, month and bearing.
The hours, bearings, triads and branch elements are the standard correspondences of the earthly branches. The month dates are worked out here from the sun's position, on the Beijing calendar, for every year from 1920 to 2026. What the solar terms are →
A January or early-February birthday can belong to the year before
The Year of the Dog does not begin on 1 January. In 2018 it began on 16 February. A baby born on 1 January 2018 — before that date — would be a Rooster, not a Dog.
The new year falls between 21 January and 20 February, and until it arrives the previous animal is still in charge. Each year's own date is in the table below.
Every year of the Dog since 1920
| Year | Began on | Element |
|---|---|---|
| 1922 | 28 January | Water Dog |
| 1934 | 14 February | Wood Dog |
| 1946 | 2 February | Fire Dog |
| 1958 | 18 February | Earth Dog |
| 1970 | 6 February | Metal Dog |
| 1982 | 25 January | Water Dog |
| 1994 | 10 February | Wood Dog |
| 2006 | 29 January | Fire Dog |
| 2018 | 16 February | Earth Dog |
The animal repeats every twelve years; the element repeats every ten, so the same pairing — such as Earth Dog — is sixty years apart.