The twelve Animal Signs

for Women

Dog woman
Her love behavior

The Dog woman's love behavior is highlighted by two features which are apparently exclusive of each other but which in actuality stem from the same and one reality. These are her fear of suffering and her masochism.

The native always approaches love and marriage with great apprehension. Proud, hypersensitive, overanxious, and having serious private doubts about her feminity, she is very much afraid of being betrayed or abandoned by the man of her heart. Even the mere idea of bereavement can terrify her. The wounds inflicted by such possible - but not necessarily probable - events would prove unbearable to her. Therefore, often, the Dog woman who loves and is loved almost systematically looks for ways and means to destroy her happiness, to leave on her own initiative the man of her life. She obscurely feels that it would be easier, less painful for her to endure a drama of her own making than to let herself be struck down by it; if it is she who provokes a separation or rupture, she would have the necessary stamina to support it. This kind of reasoning, obviously, is only a trap that she lays to herself in perfect subconsciousness. She would need a great amount of courage and clearsightedness to realize the self-destructive mechanism that functions inside her against all logic and evidence.

Not rarely does she immunize herself against possible sorrows in love by appealing to her natural masochistic tendencies. She may choose to become infatuated with men who are clearly inaccessible to her for one reason or another - for instance, married men - thus preserving her total freedom to love or to cease to love whenever the fancy takes her. She may also decide to get involved with a male who really needs her, who depends on her for his very survival; in this way she would not need to fear a betrayal, though she generally has to pay too high a price for this quite relative security. A shrewd psychiatrist would readily find out at the back of her mind her willingness to accept defeat even before giving battle. Her unconscious wish, it seems, is to be unlucky and suffer in love - but at the same time to be totally free from any responsibility for her own unhappiness.

In these conditions it is not surprising to see the large number of spinsters in this sign. But there are other reasons which account for natives' shying away from matrimony. The Dog woman's total devotion to her ideals and misgivings about her desirability as a woman have been mentioned earlier. She is convinced that love and marriage are unable to fill her life, contrary to the case of numerous other women. Since she attaches too great an importance to wedlock and expects too much from it, the mere idea of entering it may inspire her enough awe to discourage her. Finally, this woman is essentially a loner and would not view spinsterhood as a calamity. However, age tends to modify her attitude and comportment rather drastically. It is why a late marriage is very likely to suit her, and her real happiness à deux can generally come along after her forties.

This female, who appears rather barren-hearted and whose glance suggests that she judges without indulgence, is in fact not a cold fish at all. There are wells of feelings and emotions for the right man to discover. The depth of her sentiment and affection can always surprise him as much as it can delight him. Happily married, she would prove as good a mate as any other woman, and is capable of almost everything for the man she loves. But however fiercely she may long to love him, she simply cannot express her own emotions and feelings, for it is definitely not in her nature to be demonstrative.

She will not give in to a man who has not proven his adoration in countless ways over an extended period of time. It would be futile and even dangerous to hurry her into agreeing to give her hand. Once she has said "yes," however, her chosen one may feel assured of her admirable devotion and loyalty.

But this is not a lover to trifle with. Infidelity under any guise and shape will certainly meet with a violent reaction from her part. Her domestic impulses are practically nonexistent, and there is no hope of improving her in this respect. Her lover or husband must be prepared to sustain the deluge of her biting criticisms on the chapter of morality, even if he believes himself to be the most perfect man in the world.

The typical Dog female's love behavior is never sex-motivated for the simple reason that she has very little interest in the physical side of love. Her puritanism and prudery also have their share of responsibility for the situation. Although she can be surprisingly gentle when she is making love with the man of her heart, her ability to express her love physically will always remain shallow and inadequate: It is impossible for her to shed off her sense of decency completely and abandon herself body and soul into each experience.

Lacking imagination, she will not appreciate long hours of preliminary romancing. True to her conservative penchant, she will prefer her partner to always take the lead in bed, but will categorically reject any of his attempts at sex games or perversions.

The Dog woman has a very strong, but not undue, sense of family. What she may be reproached for is her tendency to be too severe and unyielding a disciplinarian: with the best intentions in the world, she is strict, bossy, and demanding with her children, prone to squelch their desire for self-expression. But it would be extremely difficult to make her realize her error here.