page_title: Dog in Chinese mythology
section_title: Real and legendary dogs
hierarchical_section_title: Dog in Chinese mythology / Real and legendary dogs
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: Despite any fantastic myths from China about dogs, real dogs have been familiar throughout China since prehistorical times (unlike certain exotic animals, such as lions or other creatures, whose real attributes may often only have been known indirectly). 
  Dogs also feature in various historical and legendary accounts or stories, found in the extensive literary records of China, although in some cases the lines between myth and ancient history are uncertain. However, in many myths, legends, or other accounts of dogs in Chinese literature, the dog or dogs are presented in ways that in have no appearance of the fanciful or fantastic (as opposed to the way other creatures may typically be handled in mythology, such as in the case of turtles, snakes, dragons, or often even horses).
caption: Later Han dynasty, a standing statue of a dog from Sichuan.
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