It's that time of year: Fun fact from the Globe and Mail:

July 3 to Aug. 11 constitute the Dog Days, the hottest, stickiest time of the year, when dogs are supposed to grow mad, all creatures turn languid and TV weathercasters grin like loons and tell us how much we are enjoying ourselves. The ancients sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of dog days, to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the dog star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.