Doggin' It

Well, if you feel a little chilly today, that's because (to everyone's surprise) the Dog Days of Summer are over. According to almanac-makers, the Dog Days of Summer are the hottest of the year, July 3 until August 11. So they were over as of Saturday, thank Heaven.

In fact, it's the Heavens that give the answer to the question you just were about to ask: Why do we call this hellacious stretch of heat the "Dog Days"?

It's a matter of Astronomy. Putting aside the old saw about dogs being sluggish in heat or going mad from heat, the fact is, the Sun is in the part of the sky in July and early August as Sirius, which is the brightest star you can see from earth.

Sirius is in the constellation Canis Major (Greater Dog). You may have heard it called the Dog Star, and that's why the logo from Sirius Satellite Radio (where music and Howard Stern come to us from the heavens) features a dog with a star for its eye.

So, in summertime, Sirius gets up with the sun and sets with the sun, and because of this conjunction, the ancient Romans, with no Google to look stuff up, figured that Sirius gave off heat and made the Sun even warmer, as if being 10,000° Fahrenheit (5,600° Celsius) is not hot enough already. So the Romans called 7/3 - 8/11 "diēs caniculārēs," or “dog days.”

This shows Canis Major heating up the sky in an old chart.