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Community Corner

Dog Days of Summer Are Winding Down

What are the Dog Days, anyway?

If you have been feeling “dog-tired” or have been accused of being too “dog-gone lazy”, relief is in sight. The “Dog Days of Summer” will soon be coming to an end as is evidenced by recent cooler nights. Just what are the Dog Days, when do they take place and where did they get their name?

Generally speaking the Dog Days fall between July 3 and Aug. 11, but actually encompass the time period between July and September when “hot, sultry weather” occurs in the Northern Hemisphere. Stagnation and inactivity result from weeks-on-end heat and humidity which affects the Southern Hemisphere from January to March.

In Ancient times, people in different cultures looked to the skies for predictable signs and inspiration-searching for images that answered questions about what was happening on Earth. There were no artificial lights-no neon signs, no night-game fields, nor was there any pollution or smog to obstruct the view. Records indicate that most cultures were stargazing simultaneously in search of meaning, but interpreted their data very differently.

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The Dog Days were considered by some to be an evil time (well, gee who doesn’t get snippy in high humidity). It was a time when “seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing man burning fevers, hysterics and phrensies”. (Brady’s Clavis Calendarium-1813)

The Old Farmer’s Almanac counts the Dog Days as July 3 to Aug. 11; the Common Book of Prayer says July 6 to Aug. 11 and the 1611 version of the King James Bible nearly the entire Fourth of July-Labor Day Holiday inspired summer (roughly July 6 to Sept. 5). In Ancient Egypt, the appearance of Sirius became a harbinger of disaster-arriving coincidentally with the seasonal flooding of the Nile as well as intense and unbearable heat. Soothsayers with catchy phrases made predictions like “Dog Days bright and clear/indicate a happy year. But when accompanied by rain/for better times our hope in vain.”

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There are references in literature, for example in a commonly read grade school novel called “Tuck Everlasting” which is set in the first week in August. “These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”

Star pictures, later referred to as constellations, were mapped out by European ancestors, although the Chinese and Native Americans each had their opinions. Images of bears (Ursas Major and Minor), the Twins (Gemini), Taurus the Bull and dogs (Canis’ Major and Minor) were constellations that were easily identified in the night skies.

Canis Major, the ‘Big Dog” also known as Sirius was the brightest of the Canis’ and also the brightest constellation in the night sky. Sirius, nicknamed ‘The Dog Star’, gave off so much light that the Romans postulated that it helped the sun to heat the Earth; that is added to the heat of the sun.  Sirius rose before sunrise (heliacal rising) and was dominant for about 40 days. This “conjunction” of Sirius and the sun became known as the “Dog Days” of summer.

“The conjunction of Sirius with the sun varies with latitude. The procession of the equinoxes-a gradual drifting of constellations over time, means that the constellations are not exactly in the same place in the sky today as in Ancient Rome.”  Scientists have also proven that the intensified heat during the Dog Days is not due to the alignment of the Dog Star and the Sun-the thermostat is responding instead to the tilting of the Earth and its proximity to the sun.

Today the Dog Days are associated with the peaking time of the Atlantic Hurricane Season as well as the predictably gloomy Wall Street forecast of the August American Stock Market.

From a gardener’s perspective it means water your garden as “this too shall pass.”

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