Jerry Mabbott's Blog

Yesterday, my neighbor said that we were in the “Dog days of summer”, so I bit him on the ankle and peed on his leg. 

Originally, the phrase actually had nothing to do with dogs, or even with the lazy days of summer. Instead, it turns out, the dog days refer to the dog star, Sirius, and its position in the heavens.

To the Greeks and Romans, the “dog days” occurred around the day when Sirius appeared to rise just before the sun, in late July. They referred to these days as the hottest time of the year, a period that could bring fever, or even catastrophe.

And all this time I thought it was funny because I was sure it meant that dogs pant a lot more during the summer. Who knew, and why haven’t astronomers come clean yet? I blame it on Putin. Seriously, this guy can apparently hack into any computer and change the outcome. I’m just glad this information was leaked so now we all know the truth. 

Imagine how dogs must have felt if this rumor had continued. Dogs everywhere would still feel responsible for causing the heat of summer and the increased use of electricity to keep things cooler inside. 

Note: 1,000 dogs were surveyed and only five felt guilty about the use of swamp coolers because they don’t think they work very well to cool the house. 72 dogs feel guilty when power outages occur. They think they could do more to intervene. 497 think that solar panels are the best solution, especially now that North Korean officials have said they could shut down the entire electricity grid in the US. 

I agree. 

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