Dog as a zodiac sign is both warm hearted and a melancholic. You have to keep in mind that dog zodiac sign, as an earthly branch, refers to a time of day and season. Dog is the evening hour and the period of time between the fall and the winter. This is after sunset and during a cold time.

The dog in the Chinese zodiac isn’t just any dog. The dog in the Chinese zodiac is a dog stationed at the door of a temple guarding what is inside. What is the dog guarding the temple against? The dog is guarding the temple against a void.

That’s the region that lurks between the fall and the winter. Again, this time of year is cold. It is like a void. Living things actually get harvested in the fall and eaten all winter. A lot of life dies during the cold season. The dog is protecting a temple, the sacred place, from a cold void.

This is why you can think of the dog as a wall or mountain. The character for the dog zodiac sign is shaped like a garrison wall. A lot of Chinese temples are built against mountains facing the river. Inside of the wall or the temple on the mountain is fire. The fire is sacred and warm. Outside is a cold void.

I’ve lived with dogs before and I’ve cared for them too. Dogs are extremely protective. They use everything their bodies are capable of in order to protect. They use their voices, their ears, and their muscles. They raise alarms, they listen to everything, and they’ll station themselves between a loved one and a door.

Dogs are walls. Dogs will bark, station themselves in guarding places, and shepherd the wayward back to the pack.

Reputation wise, dog people are said to be conservative because they are self protective. Dog is opposite from dragon which is considered to be the risk taker. I think that dogs can take on just as much risk as dragons but I think that dog courage looks different from anyone else. Remember—the dog at the temple is guarding the temple from a cold void. Dogs can survive in extreme conditions. They are willing to contend with a huge distance as long as the risk serves their ends.

What ends does the dog really care about? What makes risk worth it to a dog?

Inside the temple is a fire. A dog cares the most about its loved ones. It uses every part of its body to guard what it loves.

Basically, the dog has a warm heart. It holds love and warmth on the inside. That is what the dog uses to do the work of protecting. Dogs are warm and they are loyal. They use walls to protect their heart which is full of love.

A dog might use their impeccable boundaries to guard their own heart. They might use their fierce protectiveness to guard their friends. They might use their powers of criticism to guard what they consider to be most tender. A dog has a bark and a bite but, even without both of those things, they have things that they consider to be most important above all. Dogs are protective not because they want to use their fangs but because they care about something with their whole being.

Inside a dog person is a small fire. That fire is their heart. The fire is in need not just of protection but of nurture. Do you know how much attention a single puppy can require? A puppy needs love, care, and nurture. Dog people, too, need their inner hearts to be tended.

This is why, wherever a dog goes, they don’t usually go alone. They like to bring a whole pack. They like to be around family and community. Packs of dogs share food and scent each other to familiarize themselves. Dog people too love to rub themselves on their loved ones, making each other around them more and more familiar.

Dogs can take on tremendous risk but usually for other people or with other people. They don’t approach the world alone. Why should they? We are powerful when we are in a pack and weak when cut off.

But a pack of dogs is not strength seeking. You have to remember that. In terms of animal dominance, dogs are actually quite meandering. Packs of big cats will prowl around and threaten one another. Packs of dogs are mostly cooperative. They use their voices to alert other people to danger but they are not solo hunters. Dogs can only kill when they are in a pack. In fact, many dogs are scavengers. Dogs eat more than just meat because they forage for food in addition to hunting.

Dog people don’t form groups because they seek strength. They actually form groups in order to salvage and give strength to the vulnerable. Dog people, like a dog going on a hike, will wait for the last person in a group to catch up. Dog people will compromise their own strength in order to wait for someone else.

Monkeys, too, are foragers. They have this in common with dogs. Both monkeys and dogs are syncretistic thinkers. Both are group oriented beings who like to move in collectives. Both talk with a lot of different types of people, study human nature, and have the talent of bringing in vastly different ideas together.

What does a dog bring together? The dog sits at the threshold of the warm and the cold. They understand risk and they protect the familiar.

In the story about the race along the Jade river, the dog came in second to last because it actually didn’t care about winning. It only cared about the journey. The dog ran not along the river but through several different villages all facing the river. In those villages, the dog greeted people and played and got scraps of food to eat. In terms of all of the animals competing that day, the dog had the best time. It knew that the race was just a game and it was out to play for pleasure. In terms of all of the animals, the dog made the most friends.

I don’t believe that dog people are more conservative than other people. I don’t think that dogs are walls in that way. I don’t think that dog people need to root in one place with their immediate kin and exercise only known loyalty or static identity. I know that dogs love adventure but I also think that, wherever a dog goes, that place also becomes a kind of home. Wherever a dog goes, they find a way for that place to fall in love with them. Dogs are just too warm hearted for this not to happen.

Dogs move slowly and deliberately. They don’t care about coming in first. They are willing to wait for the slowest person. They care less about meeting goalposts and more about tending to their warm hearts. They care about keeping the pack together, about their families and about their people. They can move great distances but may be unwilling to unless someone else is coming along for the ride