Astrology/horoscopes for dogs and cats?

December 10, 2023 9:35 PM

I’m curious about the zodiac signs and personalities of my pets. Are there any reliable sources that provide astrology/horoscopes for dogs and cats?

I’ve seen some websites and apps that claim to offer pet horoscopes, but I’m not sure how accurate or trustworthy they are. I’m looking for something that is based on scientific research or reputable astrologers. Do you have any recommendations or experiences with pet astrology?

posted by shrimpetouffee to Pets & Animals (5 answers total)

I don’t have an answer for you (and I’m sure someone will pop in correcting you about “scientific research” and “reputable astrologer”), but I would think that a significant barrier to obtaining a birth chart for a pet would be having accurate birth data (date of birth, time and location). I have never know the origins of most of my dogs as they’ve all been rescues. However, honestly, you might have better luck with this question in another more sympathetic forum (but I hope I’m wrong about that!).
posted by flamk at 9:48 PM on December 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not going to knock you for believing in astrology, you do you and all that, but you won't find any "scientific research" on the subject because astrology is in no way scientific. If you use that as a criteria you'll never find anything which meets the definition of "scientific" (testable, falsifiable, experimentally repeatable, etc) and so you'll just end up listening to people who will say whatever they can to try and part you from your money.

Your best bet is probably to avoid people who make scientific claims for astrology, as they are outright lying to you, and focus on providers who believe in the same thing you do whilst focusing on trying to be good people.

I'm not getting into the debate about whether astrology has any value or not, just saying that it is incompatible with science and therefore science is not a criteria you can use to judge its practitioners in a meaningful way.
posted by underclocked at 12:06 AM on December 11, 2023 [26 favorites]

If you have your pet's birth date and time, there are tons of free birth chart calculators online, example (this one doesn't require you to put an email address or anything in). From there, you can look up the meaning of the planet's locations (sign and house) when your pet was born.

While I don't personally see Astrology as a science, I do think it can be helpful for analysis just because it gets you thinking. I can also understand wanting to read information from an astrologer that takes into account previous astrological theories so that you're getting something somewhat cohesive that other people interested in astrology would have heard of rather than some random person's theories. For this reason, I'd recommend books over internet for interpretation in general. I haven't read them to be able to recommend, but I'm seeing some specific pet astrology books when I google. For a general beginner book, I always liked Astrology for Dummies.
posted by Eyelash at 4:31 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

It can't be all that hard to invent somewhat rigorous animal astrology experiments, but I don't think you're going to find anyone conducting them.

For example, find out when dogs were born. There have to be reliable sources of dog birth dates (registration, etc.). So there's the dog's sign.

Rate them (without knowledge of when they were born, of course). Come up with a solid set of characteristics to evaluate. Compared to similar dogs (breed, age, etc.), how aggressive, friendly, intelligent, etc., is this particular slobbery dog?

Then look for correlations with astrological signs. Compared to similar dogs, dogs born under sign X are significantly more or less likely to be Y (aggressive, friendly, nervous, whatever).

Then have independent researchers see if they can reproduce the results.

But scientists aren't going to conduct such experiments unless they're doing it for fun in their spare time (?) with all that spare money (?) scientists usually have. You're much more likely to find untrustworthy anecdotal results from non-scientists who already have beliefs about animal astrology, or from sources that just hope to make money from claims about animal astrology.
posted by pracowity at 8:35 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I am not able to pull up the exact source to confirm her exact stance/provide a detailed explanation as to why, but the professional astrologer (also medium and animal communicator) Jessica Lanyadoo advises that astrology as practiced with humans is not meant to apply to pets in the same way. Astrology as a system and a language has been developed over many hundreds of years with and for humans, and there has not been an equivalent investment of study focused on animals. A human and, e.g., a dog are so different in terms of personality, issues of concern, the wavelengths we exist on, and then time is also very different. Thinking in terms of the long-term cycles that astrological transits describe- the math and the associated interpretations just do not work the same way for a creature whose lifespan is 10-15 years.

In any case, I think you know quite a bit about the personalities of your pets by virtue of spending so much time with them, and I wonder about the 'why' of this question- if it's just curiosity/for fun I totally get that, and if it's something else there are probably other ways of getting at it.
posted by wormtales at 6:27 AM on December 12, 2023 [3 favorites]