Shake it off

Our Canine Legacy

We’re ruminating about dogs today…

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

Dogs.

Many idioms and phrases ingrained in human culture result from our long association with dogs. Things like Dog leg (something bent like a dog’s leg), Dogging you (staring hard and intently at you), Barking up the wrong tree (when someone is mistaken about something), Hounding you (Constantly pestering or following you), Throw one a bone (to give someone something to placate them… to stop them hounding you!), The dog days of summer…Actually, that one has a longer history.

Let’s take a quick detour:

Some say that when Orion the hunter was placed into the sky and his body marked with bright stars, his canine companions howled at being left by their master. So, the gods placed each of them in the sky near him, marking them with bright stars. The smaller dog, Canis Minor was marked by a couple of stars, the brightest called Procyon, meaning "before the dog". Sort of an odd name until you realize it was named so because it rises above the horizon before Orion’s bigger dog Canis Major.

The gods marked Canis Major with 8 main stars the brightest being Sirus meaning “glowing" or "scorcher", as it is one of the brightest stars in our night sky. Many cultures associate the star with wolves and dogs and so Sirus is commonly called the dog star.

In the days of the ancient Greeks and the Romans, it was thought that the bright stars (Sirrus and our sun) rising alongside each other in late July and August combined their heat to create the hottest summer days. Those days became known as “the dog days of summer”. So there ya go, we are in the Dog days of summer, and many places are indeed hot.

But I digress…

Many of those aforementioned dog idioms are familiar to us, but I didn’t realize one phrase came from dogs until it hit me as I walked with my dog.  

Being a pandemic puppy, he didn’t get the chance to socialize as well as he could have with other dogs during his formative puppy weeks. Added to that were a couple of unfortunate experiences with other dogs which made him distrustful of all unknown dogs, he is never aggressive, just a little anxious. However, once he realizes another dog is friendly then he welcomes playing with them.

But, when he first sees a new dog he will get a little surge of adrenaline, his hair on his hackles will go up a little, he’ll do little woofs, and get anxious. But once we meet and or walk by and all is well, he will do a full body shake, re-set his hair, and all is good. He’s turned the page, it’s over, he shook it off. For you dog owners, if you pay attention to your dog, they will shake off many things (grooming, a vigorous play session, a long car ride, etc) not just encounters with other dogs. It’s like a reset button.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

We do the same thing at times. Think about the last time you were out, and something caused you to get that prickling or chill up your neck. That’s your hackles rising, if you had fur your hair would be up. But once the event is over, we too will shake our heads and shoulders, take a few deep breaths, and say “Phew”.

We can all take a lesson from our canine friends, we don’t need to dwell on those stressful situations, just reset, and shake it off.