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Sarah’s Simple Pleasures: Dog Days of Summer

By 28 Comments

We are officially in the Dog Days of Summer, and I would venture to say that this might go down in history as the doggone doggiest summer of humankind. For once, that’s no exaggeration. And while you may be reading this nodding, crying, shaking your head, or catatonic with disbelief that we are still in a coronavirus pandemic, I must warn you that I do not use the term ‘dog’ in a negative context. Quite the opposite. I am here to honor the sometimes vexing (excessive barking at mailperson), often distracted (squirrels, birds, butterflies, dandelion tufts in the breeze), but always devoted (furry cuddles for hours) humble hound.

How fitting for the Greeks to call the brightest star Sirius— the Dog Star. Its annual path across the night sky in pursuit of Orion is so named the Dog Days of Summer. There’s something eternally uplifting about this ancient history in light of our volatile modern one. The promise that a bright, faithful friend will follow us is a comfort.

If this is the first time we’ve met here, you should know that I have such a friend. His name is Gilbert, a.k.a. Gilly. He’s nine pounds of inexhaustible love and ferocious fluff. Many of you have your own dog star beside you at this very minute. Little bodies with colossal souls. I know for a fact that I could not have journeyed through 2020 without him following at my heels.

Immune to COVID, Gilly daily reminds me that we, humans, are not the masters of the universe that we often think ourselves. Our meticulously devised civilization is entirely undone by the invisible—a virus. It reminds me of that scene in Disney’s The Sword in the Stone when Madam Mim contracts measles during the Wizards’ Duel. I can’t even leave the house without a mask, hand sanitizer, and a six-foot bubble. Meanwhile, my dog is licking dirty shoes and bringing home dead bugs without so much as a sniffle. In fact, I haven’t seen Gilly happier. Suddenly, his family is going for long walks, playing in the garden for hours, snuggling on the couch at night, baking treats, and grilling on the back porch. It’s positively his Shangri-La.

I’m not surprised that pet adoption has skyrocketed. It’s part of our human DNA—that yearning to reconnect to our primal roots. Nature reassures us that the world will thrive. Plants and animals, the land and seas, seasons, and planets will keep doing what they do even if our city streets are empty, and we can’t go to football games.

So, when a lifelong friend texted me that she was getting a puppy, I was ecstatic. She sent photos of my nieces, her daughters, tearfully cradling their furry bundle. A boy pup in a family of all girls. He’s going to be doted on and adored every minute. And for the first time in six months, my nieces don’t look afraid. They look hopeful and blissfully happy. Their new family member follows them home next week. I can’t wait to celebrate his arrival. Summer of 2020 will be remembered as the year his bright star appeared in their lives, outshining everything else. That’s the power of these Dog Days.

Shoutout to the little creatures with big souls keeping us company during these times—what’s the name of yours?

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About Sarah McCoy

SARAH McCOY is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of The Mapmaker’s Children; The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central; and The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico. Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post and other publications. She has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She calls Virginia home but presently lives with her husband, an orthopedic sports doctor, and their dog, Gilly, in Chicago, Illinois. Connect with Sarah on Twitter at @SarahMMcCoy, on her Facebook Fan Page, Goodreads, or via her website, www.sarahmccoy.com.

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Comments

  1. I have a nine-pound piece of loudly barking dandelion fluff named Pepper. He’s white as snow, but very peppy. That’s how he got his name from my grandchildren. I found him for sale in the rear of a pickup truck in walmart parking lot.

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    • Dear Diane,

      That is the perfect way to describe our Gilly– “9lbs of barking dandelion fluff!” He and Pepper must be kindred spirits. 🤍💫🤍

      Thank you for sharing your Dog Star Pepp with us. I hope your last days of August are blissful.

      Yours truly,
      Sarah
      http://www.sarahmccoy.com

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  2. “Little bodies with colossal souls.” Thank you for this Sarah.

    No dogs. We’re a cat family. We consider ourselves so fortunate because we adopted 2 gingers in December, strays found by my sister. Mr. Fluffypants, once the runt, is a long-furred talker and loves to stretch up our legs to be carried and cuddled. Mr. Soccerplayer loves jumping after the small bouncy balls.

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  4. Katydid (Katy for short) is a 7 lb chihuahua/dachshund mix who keeps an eagle-eye out for marauding squirrels, tells off anyone who dares to walk down our street, and occasionally pees on the floor out of the overflow of her deceptively capacious reservoir of excitement and nerves.

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      • No. It is the result of her having a name when we got her (Kata or Kato or something) and us wanting to change it a little but not so much it would confuse her. So she became Katy, and since she is small and bug-eyed, we thought Katydid would be good for her Christian name. :)

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  5. Maximus, named after the hilarious horse in Disney’s Tangled.

    Meatball, whose full legal name is My Poor Meatball, named so because instead of yelling when we can’t find him we’ll sing the On Top of Spaghetti song.

    Thanks for the post Sarah, and points for mentioning The Sword in the Stone. It’s an underrated classic.

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  6. We’re another cat family. Our lynx point Siamese mix Xander (short for Alexander the Great) is happily the king of this castle. He knows we dote on him, and he uses that to manipulate us on a regular basis. Most of the time, we don’t mind.

    His adoptive sister Selena–named for her black Catwoman mask (and yes, we know that’s not how Selina was spelled in the comics)–is a white-and-black demon in a cat suit. She has two speeds: cuddly and “kill the toy with fire and rage.” And she’ll flip between those two speeds with little warning.

    I’ll also second the thanks for a shoutout to Mad Madam Mim. “The Sword in the Stone” has some of the more memorable songs from Disney’s fully animated older films.

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    • Dear Ruth,

      The Sword in the Stone is one of my all-time favorite Disney films. I agree: it is totally underrated for its brilliance, humor, and modern sensibilities. I also love Disney’s Robin Hood from 1973.

      Thanks for sharing your feline star! I’m just learning the difference in “cat points” thanks to a dear friend here in North Carolina who is a devoted cat mama. I’m told the Siamese Lynx is hiiiighly prized!

      Please give your kittens a cuddle from me. I am an all-animal lover. 🐾💜

      Yours truly,
      Sarah
      http://www.sarahmccoy.com

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  7. Just popped in to say I wish there could be more pictures in the comments. I love seeing people’s dogs.

    My writing partner, Gidget (6 y.o. black lab), is zonked out beside me now, as usual. That really is an aid to my work. Thanks, Sarah.

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  8. Love the light in this post, Sarah, thank you!

    Our Dog Star is Kismet. Once upon a time, fourteen years ago, on the heels of my daughter getting a “100” on her piano solo at NYSSMA’s annual competition, we went to a pet store. We had no intention of purchasing a puppy. None. And I know pet stores = puppy mills = I’m going to get hate letters, but… We saw a Jack Russell staring at us with beseeching eyes and had to have a visit. She was also “on sale,” which seemed a little ominous for this dog who seemed so smart and eager to engage. And that was really all she wrote. Kismet came home with us. We called Sean, my husband, from the car: Um, we have a dog now. He laughed, and they’ve been best pals ever since. She is SO his dog [click for a photo], though when the storms roll through, and the thunder comes, she looks for me; she knows who’ll crawl under a desk with her. We named her Kismet because it seemed meant that we find her that day, and bring her home, and we’ve been so lucky to have her. She’s still a little confused as to why Sean is home all of the time now, and why he talks at a computer for a good chunk of the day, but she’s cool with it all, rolls with it all, and has us utterly wrapped around her paw.

    Though I feel I’ve known Gilly through you for many years now, it’s only just hitting me that Gilbert must be Anne of Green Gables inspired, no?

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  9. Who doesn’t love a good dog story? I have two dogs—a JRT and a Beagle—otherwise known as the “Messrs.” on Facebook. I named them after two blacklisted screenwriters/novelists: Alvah Bessie (he’s the JRT) and Dalton Trumbo (the beagle).

    The JRT’s name has a very special meaning in my family. My Spanish mother was 15 years old when the Spanish Civil War started in July 1936. She lived in Asturias, the north of Spain, which was considered a “red zone.”

    My mother admired the volunteers of the International Brigades who went to Spain to fight against fascism. Among the many battalions from around the world was the American Abraham Lincoln Brigades. Alvah Bessie had been among the 2,800 American volunteers to go to Spain with the hope of defeating Franco.

    Flash forward 50 years after the war, my mother now living in the California Bay Area announced that one day she wanted to acquire a little dog and name him Alvah after Alvah Bessie whom she considered a hero.

    She never acquired that little dog, but I did. And so I named him “The Alvah Bessie” in honor of my mother and Mr. Bessie.

    Some coincidences about this whole Bessie affair. Coincidence #1: When we lived in the Bay Area, so did Mr. Bessie. He had settled, after he was released from the Texarkana Penitentiary for Contempt of Congress, in San Francisco. When we lived there Mr. Bessie resided across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County.

    Coincidence #2: Alvah Bessie has an important role in my WIP. So when I started writing about him, I needed more biographical material. As it turned out, his son Daniel happened to be on the same Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives listserv that I belonged to. When one of the volunteers had passed, he wrote his condolences to subscribed members of the listserv. After a few days, I mustered the courage to write him with the intention to get more information about his father, and that email turned out to be the start of becoming pen pals.

    And this all happened because my mother wanted a little dog named Alvah. For pictures of my mother, Alvah Bessie and Alvah the JRT, you can take a peek here:

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ev5089gccfqrwql/AADLSWwRm3UrkgYDtqm_gBPLa?dl=0

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  10. My last “mews” (thank you, Vijaya) was named Jeoffry, after Christoper Smart’s cat. His best talent was holding papers down by sitting comfortably on top of the stack, paws folded, immovable.

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  11. I inherited my Tonkinese cat from my mother when she died 13 years ago. I’d taken Mom to the SPCA in search of a cat and she fell for this love bug. We were never entirely sure of her age, but 20 years after that moment at the SPCA, just last January, the cat died.

    Bad timing or good? I miss her–and just now on a different level: with the cold nights I have mice in the house for the first time. OTOH I’m glad she was able to see the vet as needed during her last weeks. She was a generous, loving spirit. Except to mice.

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    • Dear Barbara,

      A Tonkinese! I had never heard of one of those before your post. She sounds like a marvelous old soul. Except to mice, naturally.

      Thank you for sharing her bright memory with us. I hope your last days of August are beautiful!

      Yours truly,
      Sarah
      http://www.sarahmccoy.com

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