Double hour 11 of 12 · 時支
The Dog hour
戌 Xu holds 19:00–20:59 on the modern civil clock. Tradition fitted the dog to it as the hour dogs take up guard over the household.
One branch · four linked coordinates
What stays fixed in the Dog period
The clock selects one Earthly Branch. The same branch also carries a phase, compass direction and solar-term month; those links are structural coordinates, not extra personality labels.
- Hour branch戌 Xu
19:00–20:59
- Month opens寒露 Hánlù
Cold Dew
- DirectionWest-northwest
Branch sector 11 of 12
- Fixed phaseEarth
Phase carried by the branch
五鼠遁 · day stem sets hour stem
Five complete Dog hour pillars are possible
The branch is fixed by the clock. The stem advances from the Day Master, so the ten day stems fall into five rule pairs and produce five possible hour pillars here.
- 01 · on 甲 Jia / 己 Ji days甲戌Yang Wood Dog
- 02 · on 乙 Yi / 庚 Geng days丙戌Yang Fire Dog
- 03 · on 丙 Bing / 辛 Xin days戊戌Yang Earth Dog
- 04 · on 丁 Ding / 壬 Ren days庚戌Yang Metal Dog
- 05 · on 戊 Wu / 癸 Gui days壬戌Yang Water Dog
Two clock edges
The Dog hour changes at 19:00 and after 20:59
A time earlier than 19:00 belongs to the preceding branch; a time after 20:59 belongs to the next. This site reads the local civil time entered and does not silently apply longitude, daylight-saving or apparent-solar-time corrections.
Known time
A recorded local time selects this branch and allows the hour stem to be derived from the day stem.
Unknown time
The hour pillar stays absent. Assuming noon or another default would invent two of the chart’s eight characters.
The same branch geometry at every scale
Its clash, harmony and trine do not change with the clock
The Dog branch clashes with Dragon, forms Six Harmony with Rabbit, and belongs to the Fire trine with Tiger and Horse and Dog. These relationships come from fixed positions.