Dog days are here

I'm celebrating 100 today...No, I'm not 100 years old, not even in doggie years, let alone human years (which would make me 700 doggie years)!

Today I celebrate my 100th post! In 5 days, I will be celebrating my first year blog anniversary. What an incredible journey it has been - it truly has been an experience that has made my life so much richer. Who knew that blogging could change lives?

After that little piece of news, let's move on to my next post on my Dog Series. Living in tropical sunny Malaysia, we only get rain or shine here. Never seen snow! Closest thing to it is probably an ice cube! So, I took great pleasure in reading your snow posts and seeing your snow white pictures.

We've had plenty of rain in the last couple of months. But, even as my friends in the Northern Hemisphere welcome spring, over here in Malaysia, I reckon the dog days are here. Dog days refer to the hottest period of the year (which, in Malaysia probably means for at least 6 - 9 months of the year).This term was used by the Greeks and the ancient Romans after the "Dog Star", Sirius. If you recall, Sirius is the brightest star, next to the sun. So, it makes sense that the hottest time of the year is called dog days.
Kess, enjoying a dog day evening

There are some pretty bizarre beliefs and practices relating to dog days. There was apparently a belief that dog days was an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies". OK...let's take that one with a double pinch of salt. Another myth states that the ancients sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the dog days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather. Yikes mum...I'm a brown tri-colour beagle...Do I need to hide out until it's safe? "Don't be silly, Kess...It's just a myth. Besides, we live in the 21st century" Phew!

Closer to current day, the term dog days apparently refer to poor performance of the the stock market. Typically, summer is supposedly a very slow time for the stock market. To top is off, poorly performing stocks with weak prospects are frequently known as "dogs". Given today's state of the global economy, looks like there are plenty of "dogs" out there!

Who knew that dog days could be used from describing the weather to the stock market - two topics that everyone talks about!

"Dog" Series
1. It's a dog's life
2. Fighting like cats and dogs(Beagle Identity Crisis)
3. Gone to the dogs
4. Let sleeping dogs lie
5. It's dogged as does it
6. The Underdog (vs. Top dog) (The Awesome Blog Award Nomination)
7. Every Dog Has Its Day
8. Dog Star
9. Hot Dog (Yikes...Man eats dog)

Yikes...Man eats dog

Warning! The following content may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

I have been hearing some very disturbing rumours about men (women and children too!) eating dog. Wait, don't panic, hold your horses. Let me do some sniffing and digging among the humans to see if there is any truth in it first.
It really is quite exciting to play detective - just like the famous Sherlock Holmes. Together with Dr Watson (aka. mum), my sidekick, we digged out some information on the internet and reviewed the evidence. Here's what we found out:

1)This dog is apparently one of America's favourite foods (gasp!).
2)Every year, Americans consume on average 60 dogs (yikes!)
3)There is a dog stand on almost every street corner in New York City
4)The dog is sold in every baseball game and amusement park
5)Coney Island has its very own Coney sauce for its dog
6)There are dog eating contests
7)Dogs are very popular during summer BBQs

Yes, you guessed it - it's the hot dog (also known as the sausage, frankfurter or wiener)!


Joke aside, the dog series has given me the opportunity to carry out some digging and learn some new information (do take it with a pinch of salt coz not everything on the net is true). I for one, was curious about how the famous hot dog got its name and what, if any, are the linkages of the "dog of the food variety" to the "dog of the canine variety".

Well, the origin is unclear. There are many myths, a popular (but disputable) one refers to a cartoon by a newspaper cartoonist, Thomas Aloysius "TAD" Dorgan. He apparently illustrated the sale of frankfurters by a food concessionaire, Harry Stevens at a New York Giants game back in the 1900's with a drawing of a daschund (probably just like Lorenza) between buns. And because he couldn't spell frankfurter, he called them "hot dogs".

There may be a darker history to the hot dog. Apparently, the link between sausages and dogs may go as far back as the 19th century in the US. Barry Popik of the American Dialect Society who supposedly did extensive research on this matter found a popular song of 1860:

Oh where oh where has my little dog gone?
Oh where oh where can he be?
Now sausage is good, baloney, of course.
Oh where oh where can he be?
They make them of dog, they make them of horse,
I think they made them of he.

Of course, the hot dogs of today aren't made of dogs. They better not be...GRR...Instead, most are made with pork, beef or chicken and served with a tantalising range of condiments ranging from mustard, tomato sauce, saurkraut, chilli peppers, etc, etc. If you fancy a simple recipe to spice up an ordinary dog, check out Mama's "Vienna Sausage Wrapped with Bacon, Homemade Onion Rings and Potato Salad" recipe.

Bon appetit!

P.S. This post was inspired by the comment left by Dughallmor Beagles on my last post. Thanks guys!

"Dog" Series
1. It's a dog's life
2. Fighting like cats and dogs(Beagle Identity Crisis)
3. Gone to the dogs
4. Let sleeping dogs lie
5. It's dogged as does it
6. The Underdog (vs. Top dog) (The Awesome Blog Award Nomination)
7. Every Dog Has Its Day
8. Dog Star

Dog Star

Hello Hollywood, here I come - Kess, the dog star! Fame and fortune awaits me. Champagne, limousine, bodyguards, paparazzis....


ZZZZ! "Kess...Girl, girl, time to wake up sweetie. Were you dreaming your doggie dreams again?" I hear mum's voice calling through my dream-like fuzzy state of mind. Oh, it's all a dream...You mean, I'm not really a dog star?

Wait a minute...I remember now, thanks to my pals, this beagle underdog won the "DWB Featured Blog Award" for coming in second on the "Awesome Blog Award" nomination. Thanks again everyone! But no, I'm not really a dog star. Hollywood is not my cup of tea. I'm just Kess, a Malaysian beagle who is happy sniffing away in her home in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.

Back to the dog series... Dog star isn't really a dog who is a star. Nor is it a star who is a dog. No, it's not a dog reality show....even thought there are lots of dog reality shows out there...(which sometimes really shows the worst of human behaviour! Shudder...).

Dog star is a real star of the "twinkle, twinkle" variety. I did some research on Wikepedia and came up with the following: Dog Star is the colloquial name for Sirius, the brightest star of Canis Major, the "Great Dog" Constellation(but of course...we dogs, are always the brightest...so naturally, a star named after us have to be the brightest). The Dog Star actually consists of two white stars, named Sirius A (the brighter one) and Sirius B (its fainter companion). It's actually twice as large as the sun and 25 times brighter than the sun! Imagine that! Here' what a real dog star looks like:


The Dog Star is also known as Orion's dog. Apart from Greek mythology, other cultures also associate Sirius with dogs:
Chinese astronomy - Celestial Wolf
North American indigeneous people:
Seri and Tohono O'odham - Dog that Follows Sheep
Blackfoot - Dog Face
Cherokee - Dog Star Guardian of Path of Souls
Pawnee - Wolf Star & Coyote Star
Alaskan Inuit - Moon Dog

I hope you've enjoyed this little piece on astronomy 101 about the dog star!

"Dog" Series
1. It's a dog's life
2. Fighting like cats and dogs(Beagle Identity Crisis)
3. Gone to the dogs
4. Let sleeping dogs lie
5. It's dogged as does it
6. The Underdog (vs. Top dog) (The Awesome Blog Award Nomination)
7. Every Dog Has Its Day

Every Dog Has Its Day

Mum is super busy these days. She is working on a project with some very tight deadlines. "I just don't have time to blog, Kess dear" she says. "What? How can we let down our friends who have shown us such unwavering support for our nomination for the Awesome Blog Award? Besides you can't be working all the time" I whined, giving her my most pathetic beagle look. Obviously my ploy worked since this post is written! Hah, the beagle triumphs again.

Well, the results are out. And top dog, Mango has come up tops. Congratulations Mango - A well-deserved win indeed! On top of that, Mango is a really cool dog. After I dropped by his blog (and the other 2 nominees) to congratulate him on his nomination, he returned the favour and left me this note:
"Kess,
Good job on your nomination. Don't worry, the same thing happened to me the first time I was nominated. Some doggie had a super bloggy month and crushed the competition (and to be honest, I just started Mango Minster as a lark and never imagined how BIG it would be). You look like a super underdog!
Slobbers,
Mango"

Hey, I may not have won this time, but "Every dog has its day". I really love this proverb. It really is uplifting and gives me hope that every dog gets a chance eventually (yes, my friends, that means you too!) . Just look at Mango...The underdog eventually became top dog.

What I really cherish from this experience is how blessed I am to have such great friends (Thanks for voting for me!). Which leads to this very belated posting of the friends award I received from Dughallmor Beagles two months back! Thanks Dughallmor Beagles! This award goes out to all my blogging buddies, most of whom I've never met personally but through blogging have become my electronic pen pals. You are all awesome in my books!


"Dog" Series
1. It's a dog's life
2. Fighting like cats and dogs(Beagle Identity Crisis)
3. Gone to the dogs
4. Let sleeping dogs lie
5. It's dogged as does it
6. The Underdog (vs. Top dog) (The Awesome Blog Award Nomination)

Awesome Blog Award Nomination - The Underdog

Wow! I'm still reeling from shock. I received a note from Opy which said "hey,you have been nominated for Awesome Blog award over at the Bone Zone - head on over and cast your vote :) love opy". So, I head over to the Bone Zone to find out more. Turns out, that my pals, Key West Collies has nominated yours truly for the Awesome Blog Award - "We would like to nominate Kess for her study of the word Dog in the English Language". Thank you so much, Essex and Deacon. It truly is an honour to be nominated for this award and I am so happy that you guys are enjoying this series of posts on "dog" words and idioms.

Of course, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't continue with my "dog" word series, the very thing that got me nominated in the first place. Currently, I am starting out as an underdog. (An underdog is a competitor which is thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest.) Mango, is obviously the top-dog of this competition, and most worthy of it too. The other notable nominees are Bubblegum dogs and Bae Bae. Anyway, underdog or top-dog, it's awesome to be considered for this award. What's really important is that we all have fun in this contest.

I never would have thought that when I ventured into the world of blogging on March 27 last year, that I would have made so many new friends from all over the world. Now, more than 90 posts in less than a year later, I've been nominated for the Awesome Blog Award. I am so totally blown away. Thank you.

And just for fun, I would like to share a quote by the comic bumbling beagle turned superhero - aka Shoe Shine from the Disney movie Underdog.

"There's no need to fear, Underdog is here."

So, if you guys like my blog and want to give this underdog a shot at winning the Awesome Blog Award, hop on over to Dogs with Blogs Bone Zone and cast your vote. Who knows, this underdog may stand a chance yet...




P.S. Do you see any resemblance to Underdog??? This was the closest picture I could find in my "superdog" pose. However, my ears don't flop backwards and seem to prefer to curl inwards instead! Does anyone know a good dog-dresser?

"Dog" Series
1. It's a dog's life
2. Fighting like cats and dogs(Beagle Identity Crisis)
3. Gone to the dogs
4. Let sleeping dogs lie
5. It's dogged as does it

It's dogged as does it...

I am having so much fun working on posts that has the phrase/idiom "dog". The challenge lies with finding a story that goes with the phrase. I hope that you enjoy reading about dog phrases and idioms as much as I enjoy writing about it.

Today's dog phrase "It's dogged as does it" is actually a colloquial term (according to the Oxford dictionary) and means Persistence succeeds. In fact, the word "dogged" is defined as "tenacious, grimly persistent". All dogs can definitely relate to that. In fact, judging from all the hilarious stories I read on your blogs about escapes, foods, toys, etc, I reckon all dogs' humans can attest to that too!

We dogs are a tenacious lot - doggedly determined to pursue all means necessary to achieve our goals of:

1)Getting our humans to take us with them when they go out
2)Expressing our displeasure at being left alone (when the above fails)
2)Getting to food
3)Getting to toys
4)Getting to other dogs (especially during mating season...)

Just the other day, in the face of adversity (Ok..., I'm being a bit melodramatic here), my humans & I doggedly pursued our right to walk in our beloved hill. It was late, around 7pm. My humans thought that since there aren't many people walking in the hills at that time of the day, we would all go up the paved trail in the hills. Lo and behold, we were stopped at the guard house because ..."GASP"... I was a dog! The man pointed to the Sign which had a picture of a dog with a big "X" in front of it I was so hurt...It might as well have been my picture with a big "X" in front of it.

My humans tried to assure me that it was nothing personal. That's just the way it is in our country. Dogs aren't welcomed in many places. Anyway, no time to pout. We were doggedly determined that we would walk up the hill. Fortunately, dad knows the hill like the back of his hand, so, we back-tracked and went into a small path leading into the jungle. There was still some daylight left so we could see our way. We went on a parallel path on the jungle trail and after about 10 minutes, made our way back to the brightly-lit paved road, way past the guard house. Aaha! Outwitted you Mr. Guard Man! You're forgetting you're dealing with a beagle! After all, beagles are famous for our tenacity and stubborness.

Anyway, we had a great walk. On the way down, we hoped that Mr Guard Man would have gone off for dinner. No such luck. We had no choice but to use the same jungle trail to bypass the guard house again. Only this time, it was pitch black. Since my humans weren't expecting to use the jungle trails, they didn't bring any torch with them. But I wasn't worried. I'm a beagle remember? Beagles are well-known for our powerful noses. Besides, dad knows the trail like the back of his hand...GULP...I hope...Every cloud has a silver lining, in our case, our silver lining came in the form of fire-flies. Because it was so dark in the jungle, we could actually see fire flies as we walked. What a treat!

There you have it - My story about "It's dogged as does it" - Persistence pays off!

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I have to say that this is one of my favourite doggie phrases. The definition of the idiom "Let sleeping dogs lie" is "To leave things as they are; especially, to avoid restarting or rekindling an old argument; to leave disagreements in the past. " Humans love to complicate matters. My definition is simple - "Let sleeping dogs lie" is exactly what is says...Let sleeping dogs lie...

On the grass...

On the floor...

In the sun...

All curled up...

On the back...

Hey...Let sleeping dads lie too!