Dreaming about
dogs

Dogs were the first animals people tamed, long before anyone farmed, and they've spent thousands of years guarding our doors and reading our moods. So dreaming about dogs is very often about loyalty, whether that's a friend you trust, someone who protects you, or a fear that a person close to you will turn. A dog that ran to greet you and a dog that went for your hand point in opposite directions, and both dreams are common.

If you have a dog, start there. After all, we dream about what we spend our days with, and a dog that sleeps in your room is part of a lot of those days, so it would be odd if it never showed up at night.^[1] A dog you didn't recognize, or one that did something no dog of yours would do, is more likely to stand for a person or a feeling, and its breed, size and mood are worth noting before you look at any reading.

What dreaming about dogs means

No animal lives as close to people as a dog does, which is why so many dog dreams turn out to be about people. What the dog did with you usually tells you which relationship it is.

A friend you trust

"Man's best friend" is a cliché because it's mostly true, and a happy, loyal dog in a dream is often a friend or a partner you can count on. Sometimes the dog even behaves like a particular person (bouncy, anxious, stubborn), and once you see who, the rest of the dream gets easier to read. If the dog was yours in the dream but not in real life, ask who in your life you've started to rely on lately.

Someone who protects you

Dogs bark at strangers, sleep by the door and put themselves between their people and anything new. A dog guarding you in a dream is usually about protection, which can be support you have (a parent, a partner, a good friend) or support you wish you had. And if the guard dog was asleep, gone, or more interested in someone else, the dream may be about feeling that nobody has your back.

Your own needs

A dog wants simple things, to eat, to run, to play and to be touched, and it lets you know loudly when it doesn't get them. A hungry, neglected or locked-up dog in a dream is often a part of you that's been running on empty, because you've been working too hard or caring for everyone but yourself. And "dog-tired" exists for a reason.

A loyalty that might turn

The darker reading is betrayal. Most people trust dogs, and a dog that turns is a picture of someone you trusted doing the same. This reading fits when the dog was familiar, which is also true of real dog bites, since most of them come from a dog the person already knows.

Dreaming about a puppy

Puppy dreams are among the most searched, and they're mostly gentle. A puppy is something new, playful and needy, like a friendship in its first weeks or a project you've just started. Some people dream of puppies when they want a pet, or a child, and the dream is simply saying so. But a puppy that chewed everything or wouldn't settle points to a new responsibility that's taking more out of you than you expected.

Dreaming about a dog biting you

English has "bite the hand that feeds you" for someone who turns on the person who helps them, and that's the usual reading when a dream dog bites your hand. Have you helped someone who has started to treat you badly? But it can also run the other way, as guilt about being ungrateful yourself. A bite on the leg or the ankle tends to be about being held back, something or someone stopping you from going where you meant to go. If it was your own dog that bit you, the dream is often about a close relationship where something small has gone sour.

Dreaming about a dog attacking you

A full attack is a stronger dream than a bite, and it usually means a conflict you can't avoid any more, at work, at home or with a friend. Barking and snarling before the attack is the hostility you've been sensing for a while. Who has been growling at you lately, and have you been pretending not to hear it? Several dogs attacking at once can feel like a group turning on you, the office or the family against you, and it's close to dreams of wolves hunting as a pack. If you fought the dog off, the dream is often about having more strength in that conflict than you think.

Dreaming about a black dog

Samuel Johnson called his low moods his "black dog", and Winston Churchill made the phrase famous for his own depression. British folklore also has its black dogs, ghostly animals said to haunt lanes and churchyards at night. So a black dog dream, especially one that follows you or sits nearby without doing anything, is often about a heavy mood that's been with you for a while. If you've felt flat or hopeless for weeks, that's worth talking to a doctor about, whatever your dreams are doing.

Dreaming about a white dog

A white dog tends to carry the calm readings, like guidance, protection, or a fresh start in a friendship. In Welsh legend the hounds of the otherworld are white with red ears, so a white dog can feel strange as well as gentle. If it led you somewhere, pay attention to where, because a dream guide usually takes you toward something you've been avoiding.

Dreaming about a dead dog

A dead or dying dog you didn't know is often about a friendship that's fading, or a loss of protection, someone who used to look out for you and no longer does. If the dog was sick and you couldn't help, the dream may be about feeling powerless while someone you love struggles. And if you found a dog you had forgotten to feed, look for a relationship or a part of yourself you've been neglecting.

Dreaming about your dog that died

Dreaming about a dog you've lost is usually grief doing its quiet work. Many people find these dreams comforting, the dog healthy again, running toward them as if nothing happened. Others find them painful, especially if the dog was hurt or lost in the dream, and both are normal. The dream doesn't mean the dog is trying to tell you something. But it does show how much room it still takes up in your life.

Dreaming about dog poop

Stepping in dog poop in a dream is usually about mess that isn't yours, a problem someone else left that you walked straight into. Cleaning it up points to the feeling of always being the one who sorts things out. And there's a lucky side, since in France, for one, stepping in it with your left foot is said to bring good luck. If you were embarrassed in the dream, look for a situation where you're worried someone will notice something you'd rather hide.

Dreaming about a dog chasing you

A dog chasing you is a chase dream first, and being chased is the dream theme people report more than any other.^[2] What are you running from, and what would happen if it caught up? Anyone who has met a nervous dog knows that running makes it chase, while standing still often calms it down. Dreams tend to follow the same rule, so if you ever manage to plant your feet and face the dog mid-dream, it often goes quiet or wanders off.

Dreaming about dogs according to Jung and Freud

Each man has an idea that fits how a dog behaves in a dream, and where we apply it rather than quote it, we say so.

Jung: the dog as a helpful animal

Writing about the mother archetype, Jung counted helpful animals in general among its many forms.^[3] A dog that guides, guards or comforts you fits that, as the care you had or the care you wanted. Dogs also stand at doors in myth. Cerberus guards the gate of the Greek underworld, and the jackal-headed Anubis leads the dead in Egypt, so a dog waiting at a door or a gate in your dream may be guarding a change you're about to go through.

Freud: a puppy, a household, a day

Freud listed small animals among the symbols he read as small children, often unwanted siblings,^[4] though a dog isn't named in that list. Applied to a puppy, the idea gives a pointed question: whose needs are you looking after right now, and who has started to feel like a burden? Day residue is where he'd look first, and a dog is the easiest piece of it there is, since a dog you walk, feed or pass on the street each morning has plenty of chances to turn up that night. If it's your own dog, the first thing he'd ask is what happened with it that day.

The spiritual meaning of dogs in dreams

One tradition has a ruling on dog dreams, and it's about how you read them.

Dogs in the Talmud

In the Talmud, the foundational rabbinic text, tractate Berakhot gives three folios to dreams, and a dog is one of the images it says can go either way, along with a river, a bird and a lion. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi advised getting up early and saying the verse that reads such an image well, here the line in Exodus where not a dog will whet its tongue against the Israelites, before the verse that reads it badly, the one in Isaiah that calls dogs greedy, can get there first.^[5] It's the same idea as the Talmud's saying that all dreams follow the mouth of whoever interprets them, as long as the reading fits the dream.

Questions to ask about your dog dream

Since a dog in a dream is so often a person, the best questions are about who it was and how it treated you.

• Was it your dog, a dog from your past, or a stranger?
• Was it friendly, frightened, guarding you or attacking you?
• Did it remind you of anyone, in its looks or its temper?
• Who in your life do you trust most right now, and who are you less sure of?
• Have you been looking after everyone's needs except your own?

When you describe a dream to Oniri, it asks you about these things first, so a loyal dog and a snarling one each get read against your own life.