Proverb 5: Even a dog...

 Here is today's proverb:

犬も歩けば棒に当たる

And in romaji:

inu mo arukeba bo ni ataru

And English: "Even a dog walking about runs into a stick."

I've now read two very different interpretations of this saying: one says that it is some kind of bad luck for the dog (being hit by a stick?), but the other interpretation, and the one I like better, is about how a dog can have good luck and run into a stick, i.e. find something that it wants. There is a similar English saying, "The dog that trots about finds a bone." The "bone" in that English saying makes it less ambiguous: that's good luck! In either case, the meaning I take away from this is that a dog has to walk, and we do too; you do not know what you will find when you go walking... so you just have to walk and see! You will certainly find something.

Wikimedia

My vocabulary for today:

犬

 いぬ  — "dog"