DOG DAYS: Our hunch was right. The so-called
“dog days” don’t have all that much to do with our four-legged
friends – except maybe in a roundabout way.

Our astute readers tell us this term actually originates
in the heavens, as had been suggested.

Don Barry of Tonawanda, N.Y., a former reporter and columnist
for The Era, writes, “Dog days’ refers to the hot, humid period
of summer from early July to early September. Ancient Romans called
it ‘dies caniculares,’ meaning ‘days of the little dogs.’

“Actually it has nothing whatsoever to do with how the canines
here on earth react to the hot weather.

“The dog days are so named because Sirius, ‘the dog star,’ rises
and sets during that time. Not counting our sun, Sirius is the
brightest star in the heavens. Appropriately, Sirius is in the
constellation Canis Major, with ‘Canis’ meaning ‘dog’ in Latin.
The word Sirius is derived from a term for ‘burning.’

“The ancients actually sacrificed a dog at the beginning of dies
caniculares to appease Sirius, which they thought caused the sultry
weather. So it seems modern-day dogs are much better off than their
ancient relatives.”

Dave, one of our online readers, worked for The Era for
four years in the early 1950s and wrote a column, “The Breakfast
Nook.”

We also heard from Don Fredeen of Derrick City with a similar
take on the subject, “It is the period in which the Dog Star,
Sirius, the most brilliant star in the constellation Canis Major
(the Greater Dog), rises in conjunction with the sun. In ancient
belief it was the combined heat of Sirius and the sun, while these
two heavenly bodies are in conjunction, that brought about the
sultry weather.”

Finally for today, Ron Homan of Lute, Fla., added a few details
from Wikipedia: “Popularly believed to be an evil time ‘when the
seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures
became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and
phrensies,’ Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.

“The Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius, the
Dog Star, rose just before or at the same time as sunrise, which is
no longer true owing to precession of the equinoxes. The ancients
sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease
the rage of Sirius. … “