It could be said, with the greater exposure to doggy culture from the West, many dogs do enjoy reasonably good environments, but usually only if their owners already have the considerable good fortune of living in one of Taipei's more salubrious suburbs. With the year of the dog coming up, these pampered pets are likely to enjoy the now massive range of doggy paraphernalia that is available in any department store and will likely be appearing in new quilted jackets and rhinestone collars to welcome in "their year."
The connection between dogs and good fortune seems terribly skewed in Taiwan, so it is probably best to leave real dogs out of the equation altogether and focus on the abstract qualities that fortunetellers have ascribed to this canine year. On the whole, unlike more ambivalent beasts such as snakes, tigers and rats, the good qualities of the dog seem to outnumber the bad, with trustworthiness and loyalty ranking high on the list.
They make staunch friends, are good at business, bad at love, have a keen sense of justice and always root for the underdog. Some astrologers suggest that people born in the year of the dog are prone to dogmatism, but that simply makes you wonder if even astrologers can't resist the appeal of a bad pun.
Detailed accounts, in English, of how the year will work out for you, depending on your own birth sign, lucky element, your partner's birth sign, time of birth, and so on can be found at www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/2006.htm, for those who are interested in such things. It is a pretty mixed bag, which is hardly surprising, but let us hope that for dogs, their owners, and all others, the Year of the Dog will indeed bring prosperity and good fortune.
And apropos of nothing in particular, Groucho Marx once said: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. And inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
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