It's the Year of the Dog — for three years running.

Duane "Dog" Chapman and his tattooed crew return tomorrow for the third-season premiere of the Hawai'i-based hit reality show, "Dog the Bounty Hunter."

Season three will feature everything from celebrity ride-alongs to Chapman finally getting married to his longtime sidekick and business partner, Beth Smith.

The guest list for the May 20 wedding is as intriguing as Chapman's blond mohawk-mullet. Guests include wrestler Hulk Hogan, actor Danny Bonaduce and singer Winona Judd.

"I'm marrying my common-law wife, Beth, the Christian way, with a preacher and all that," Chapman said.

In jeans, silver-tipped cowboy boots and a leather jacket on a steamy 75-degree night in Waikiki, Chapman reflected on the surprising success of the show and his journey to becoming the self-proclaimed world's best bounty hunter.

Almost always getting his man at the end, "Dog the Bounty Hunter" has attracted a huge following and is A&E's highest-rated series ever.

Fame does have its drawbacks. Chapman can no longer lounge at the beach, or go shopping without being asked for photos and autographs. But the 53-year-old Chapman is used to attention, even before becoming a cult TV star.

"Not to sound like I'm bragging, but I was like a legend in my own mind anyway," he said.

It takes just a few seconds with Chapman to figure out his best weapon is neither his biceps nor the pepper spray canisters the size of fire extinguishers he totes around. It's his surprising sincerity, uncanny intuition and his mouth.

Chapman can talk. He speaks with the compassion of a preacher, the bravado of a pro wrestler and persuasiveness of a snake-oil salesman.

"I think a lot of people judge him on how he dresses, by the way he looks," said Smith. "People who had a poor opinion of him before they meet him, completely have a 100 percent turnaround when he shows his heart and how loving he is."

In tomorrow's two-part premiere, Chapman leaves Honolulu and heads to the Bay Area to track down a fugitive whose $75,000 bond is due soon and has eluded the bounty hunter for three years.

Tempers flare between Chapman and Smith as they close in on the suspect who plays defensive end on a semipro football team. With the police focused on chasing down a cop-killer, Chapman decides he needs more tools for the job and hits a Radio Shack.

Smith said the third will be the best season.

"Third time's a charm," she said. "We notice the cameras less and less, so it's the real us."

Chapman grew up in Denver, the oldest of four sons. His father, a Navy welder, was physically abusive. His mother was a minister.

"My father is the reason I am the way I am today," Chapman said. "He's why I acted up and he's why I prayed to be the opposite of him. We made up before he died but I vowed to never raise my kids like how he raised me."

By 15, Chapman had joined a biker gang, the "Devil's Disciples," and was entering a world of crime. After a string of robbery arrests, he was convicted of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison.

Chapman said he was outside when a fellow Disciple went into the house to buy some marijuana.

"He got into it with a guy. Boom! We heard a shot. When he came out, his hand was bloody and I thought he had been shot," Chapman said.

It turned out, the dealer was shot. Chapman claims he never saw the shooting.

"Texas in the '70s, if you were there, you were just as guilty as if you pulled the trigger," he said. "Today, if we didn't see it, we would've gotten something, but never prison."

In prison, he promised to turn his life around, honed his understanding of the criminal mind.

"I was in there with killers, the worst in the world, brother. This was '70s Texas," Chapman said.

Dog got his nickname from his Devil gang members.

"I was very loyal. I'm man's best friend. I always showed up for the fight. I took care of my brothers," he said. "I'm Native American so it's in my blood to always want brothers and friends. I'm a good brotherhood guy. And 'Dog' is 'God' spelled backward."

Chapman claims more than 6,000 captures without firing a single bullet. But the one that launched him to stardom was the 2003 apprehension of serial rapist and Max Factor heir Andrew Luster in Mexico.

"The title was on the line. Every bounty hunter was saying, 'We're going to catch him. We're the best,"' Chapman said.

But it wasn't just bragging rights that prompted Chapman to pursue Luster. He also met two of the women that Luster drugged and raped.

"They said, 'You're our only hope, Dog. Please,"' Chapman said. "When you go after someone like that, you put some of those kind of things in your pocket, or in your heart."

Chapman never received any bounty for the capture of Luster, who is three years into his 124-year sentence.

"We weren't by that judge, but were we paid? Oh, yeah. Over and over again, brother," said Chapman, whose contract for the third season was worth a reported $2.6 million.

Chapman said bounty hunting is his calling or "destiny."

What would he be doing if he wasn't a bounty hunter?

"Robbing banks," he whispered.