Written by David Caldwell · 11 August 2025

The Dog Days of Summer  - meanings and origins

The Dog Days - From the Rising of Sirius to the Season of Mad Dogs

The phrase ?Dog Days? is among the oldest seasonal terms in human language. It is a phrase that has shifted in meaning across millennia: once a sacred astronomical marker tied to the rising of Sirius, later a season of fear when English towns ordered dogs muzzled, fairs hired Dog Killers, and the threat of hydrophobia haunted every summer?s day.

The Heavens Burn - Sirius and the Ancient World

In the ancient Mediterranean, the Dog Days began with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the ?Dog Star? in the constellation Canis Major. This first dawn appearance of Sirius, just before sunrise, fell in the hottest part of the year and was linked to fever, drought, and madness.

The Greeks, inheriting the Babylonian zodiac, gave Sirius divine status. According to one 1933 account:

?Greeks? worshipped Sirius, and sacrifices were offered to it in the hope of securing its blessings and averting its malign influence. Offerings of wine, milk, and honey were poured on a heap of stones facing the rising star, while dogs were roasted whole on spits.? (Blackburn Times, 8 July 1933)

The Romans carried the rite into their own calendar, sacrificing a dog together with incense, wine, and a sheep at the rising of Sirius. As the same source notes:

?It was held to be a sign of the goodwill of the gods, and an image of the goddess Sothis (Sirius) was borne in procession to the temple of Isis at Dendera.?

The Egyptians revered Sirius above all, for its rising heralded the annual inundation of the Nile. This flood, spreading rich silt across the farmlands, meant life itself. In Egypt, Sirius was personified as Sothis and associated with Isis, and the star?s return to the dawn sky was celebrated with public processions.

Sirius the Harbinger of Heat and Madness

The belief that Sirius?s rising caused the burning heat of midsummer was universal in the classical world. Aristotle and Pliny wrote that ?the excessive heat? came from ?the combined effect of the sun and the dog-star.?

A 1911 newspaper distilled the Greek belief into a vivid litany of disaster:

?The Greeks? were wont to sacrifice a brown dog to appease his wrath, the general belief being that Sirius was the cause of the hot, sultry weather? and that on the first morning of its rising the sea boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad and man became afflicted with all manner of burning fevers, hysterics and frenzies.? (Dominica Chronicle, 11 October 1911)

At Argos, the danger was taken to civic extremes. The same source notes:

?A festival was held during the Dog Days known as ?Cynophantese,? which means that dogs were killed on sight.?

From the Temple to the Almanac

The Romans fixed the Dog Days into their agricultural and civic calendars, a period of roughly forty days in late summer. Over centuries, the astronomical precision faded. By medieval times, English almanacs listed the Dog Days as 3 July to 11 August, regardless of the star?s true rising.

The Abergavenny Chronicle (17 July 1896) observed:

?The old view used to be that they were named from the helical rising of Sirius? but whereas the Dog Days last from July 3 to August 11, Sirius does not rise till the end of that month.?

Yet even with the astronomy muddled, the dread attached to the name remained potent.

A Season of Muzzles and the Fear of Hydrophobia

By the 18th and 19th centuries, the Dog Days in England had taken on a more terrestrial association: the belief that dogs were more prone to go mad during this season.

The Abergavenny Chronicle noted that ?some good people used to think? dogs went mad then; but statistics have discovered that dogs go mad in spring and autumn, but hardly ever at midsummer.? Still, the fear drove tangible action.

• Muzzling Orders: ?The first muzzling order dated by the Mayor of Cambridge [was] on the first of the Dog Days.?
• Official Dog Killers: The Western Gazette (2 July 1937) recalled: ?At many Somerset fairs? there was always one called the Dog Killer; it was his duty to keep close watch on all dogs? and if one showed signs of madness to kill it before it had opportunity to bite.?

In an age before vaccines, rabies, then called hydrophobia, was the most dreaded of summer afflictions. A single bite could mean an agonising death, weeks or months later. The disease?s very name came from its most disturbing symptom: the inability to swallow water.

Folk Remedies and Desperate Measures

Faced with this terror, rural communities turned to cures that mixed herbalism with brutality. The Western Gazette recorded several Somerset treatments for hydrophobia:

• ?Drag the victim by a rope into deep water and duck violently three times.?
• ?Place a knob of flannel soaked in vitriol on each mark of the dog?s tooth.?
• ?Take primrose root, star of the earth, and sage? well boiled in a quart of milk; add one ounce of ?dew? finely powdered, and give internally ?like treacle.??

There was even the grim practice of smothering a patient deemed beyond help, a custom linked to the 18th-century physician Dr. Christopher Nugent of Bath.

Echoes into the 20th Century

By the early 20th century, astronomy had reclaimed the Dog Days for Sirius, but the older associations lingered. In rural memory, and in the pages of local papers, Sirius?s ancient heat still mingled with the image of muzzled dogs, fairground Dog Killers, and the fear of hydrophobia.

As one 1937 columnist warned, half in jest:

?Beware, gentle reader! Take special care to-day. Avoid sea-bathing, wine-drinking, all dogs, and all other people. For Saturday is the first of the Dog Days? the sea doth boil, wine doth turn sour, the dogs go mad, bile increaseth, and fevers and frenzies do abound.? (Western Gazette, 2 July 1937)

Conclusion

From the temple of Isis at Dendera to the muzzled dogs of Cambridge, the Dog Days have carried a shifting burden of meaning, divine omen, seasonal scourge, and civic duty. They remind us how a celestial event could become a season of ritual, regulation, and superstition, and how those patterns persisted long after the stars had been charted and the science explained.

The bright point of Sirius in the dawn sky once brought offerings of milk and honey, the roasting of dogs, and prayers for the Nile?s rise. In later ages it brought the thud of a muzzling order, the watchful eye of the fairground Dog Killer, and the dread of an illness that no treacle, dunking, or flannel could cure.

Citations

1. Blackburn Times, ?The Dog Days, Their Meaning and Origin,? 8 July 1933.
2. Dominica Chronicle, ?Dog Days,? 11 October 1911.
3. Abergavenny Chronicle, ?Dog Days,? 17 July 1896.
4. Western Gazette, ?The Dog Days, Cures for Madness, West Country Beliefs,? 2 July 1937.