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Old timers believed Noah had more to do with Dog Days than a star in the sky.

Uncle Ovie and my granny said The Dog Star rose with the sun about the same time as the hot, sticky, sultry days of summer came around, but old Noah had more to do with Dog Days than a star in the sky.

According to them, there wasn’t anything about Dog Days that anybody liked.

Over the years, I learned much of what I know about Dogs Days from them, perhaps that was because their stories were more interesting and more fun than the weather men on television, who just reported rising temperatures until the Dog Days of summer had come to an end. They never said much about Dog Days.

These are the stories about Dog Days that I learned from the old folks mainly Uncle Ovie, and my granny, Minnie.

Dog Days come on July 26 each year and with them come a time of “pure misery.” And that time of misery was brought about because, back in Noah’s time, the Lord sent down 40 days and 40 nights of rain and it destroyed the world. After the flood was over, the Lord promised He would never again destroy the world by a flood. He sealed that promise with a rainbow in the sky.

How dogs got mixed up with Noah and the rainbow, Uncle Ovie figured was that, during Dog Days, dogs have fits and go mad and are scared to death of water, as scared as people were back during the 40 days and nights ol’ Noah was in the ark and the waters kept getting higher and higher.

Uncle Ovie said a mad dog won’t touch a drop of water no matter how thirsty it is, even with water standing all around it. The dog will go crazy and run here and there trying to get away from its affliction and trying to get help but nobody can help it, just like it was in Noah’s flood.

My granny said a mad dog was a pitiful and fearful sight. People would run from them but a rabid dog bit a little boy and he went mad, just like the dog.

Granny said the little boy was screaming and crying and pulling at his hair and clawing at his face because he had gone mad.

She said it was so pitiful for the little boy to suffer like that. Two men tied him to the bedpost. Granny said if the boy had been a dog, somebody could have shot him and put him out of his misery. He died tied to the bedpost.

Uncle Ovie said July 26 was the start of the Forty Days of misery. According to him, if it rained on the first day of Dog Days, it would rain or you would see rain somewhere in the distance. The gnats would get in your eyes so bad you would get sore eyes. Anything you got during Dog Days would plague you throughout the 40 days of misery. Mamas would rub kerosene around their children’s eyes to keep the gnats away or smear on a poltice of Vaseline and sulfur. There was noting that smelled good about folks during Dog Days

Mosquitoes would come in droves and eat people alive and they would “near about” scratch themselves to death or itch to death.  There was no relief in sight until the end of Dog Days.

Snakes crawl all hours of the day and night during Dog Days. Uncle Ovie said snakes go as blind as a bat during dog days. Snakes eyes will look like balls of cotton and snakes can’t see one thing with those cotton ball eyes. So, snakes will strike like wildfire. They coil at the first thing that goes by and strike at the next thing. You won’t know if you are the first thing or the next thing.

My granny said Dog Days don’t spare any of God’s creatures. The fish get lockjaw and can’t bite, birds won’t sing hardly at all and, because birds  are not  singing, the mocking bird can’t mock cause there’s nothing to mock.

If a cloud comes up during Dog days, it will be a doozy. Lighting will be popping and thunder will be crashing and that signals there’s a magnetism in the ground that draws dangerous lighting down to it.

Uncle Ovie said one time he was out in an electric storm and he wanted to get home fast so he crawled over the wire fence and a lightning strike went down the fence and up him. It blistered the bottom of his feet and singed the hair on the top of his head.

Uncle Ovie and my granny saw a lot of strange things happen during Dog Days. They said the creek would flow upward and the chickens would crow and the and rooster would lay eggs.

According to Uncle Ovie, no matter what the Old Farmers Almanac says, the Forty Days of Misery will end from July 26. So, it will be wise to stay in house and read the funny papers.