page_title: Dog in Chinese mythology
section_title: Zodiacal dog
hierarchical_section_title: Dog in Chinese mythology / Zodiacal dog
caption_attribution_description: The Dog statue is one of the 12 Chinese zodiac portrayed in the Kowloon Walled City Park in Kowloon City, Hong Kong.
context_page_description: Dogs are an important motif in Chinese mythology. These motifs include a particular dog which accompanies a hero, the dog as one of the twelve totem creatures for which years are named, a dog giving first provision of grain which allowed current agriculture, and claims of having a magical dog as an original ancestor in the case of certain ethnic groups.
context_section_description: For thousands of years, a twelve-year cycle named after various real or mythological animals has been used in Southeast Asia. This twelve-year cycle, sometimes referred to as the "Chinese zodiac," associates each year in turn with a certain creature, in a fixed order of twelve animals, after which it returns to the first in the order, the Rat. The eleventh in the cycle is the Dog. 
  One account is that the order of the beings-of-the-year is due to their order in a racing contest involving swimming across a river, in the so-called Great Race. The reason for the Dog finishing the race second from last despite generally being a talented swimmer is explained as being due to its playful nature: the Dog played and frolicked along the way, thus delaying completing the course and reaching the finishing line. 
  As of 2012, the next Year of the Dog in the Chinese calendar is February 16, 2018 to February 4, 2019 (Year of the Yang Earth Dog). The personalities of people born in Dog years are popularly supposed to share certain attributes associated with Dogs, such as loyalty or exuberance; however, this would be modified according to other considerations of Chinese astrology, such as the influences of the month, day and hour of birth, according to the traditional system of Earthly Branches, in which the zodiacal animals are also associated with the months and times of the day (and night), in twelve two-hour increments. 
  The Hour of the Dog is 7 to 9 p.m. and the Dog is associated with the ninth lunar month.
caption: The Dog statue is one of the 12 Chinese Zodiacal creatures portrayed in the Kowloon Walled City Park in Kowloon City, Hong Kong.
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