My geriatric bird dog Belle has been practicing her earthquake drill for going on two full weeks now.

I know this because the only time that she breaks the safety of prone positioning is when one of her briar-scarred ears picks up the sound of kibble dropping into her food pan.

Much like a fair-skinned resident of Transylvania, she has not set foot out from beneath the canopy of her favorite oak tree into the sunlight for quite some time, and the old girl has even taken a liking to wallowing in the fine, gray dust like an African elephant roaming the Serengeti.

Most of the other canines I cross paths with on a regular basis have also been quite lethargic and disagreeable; even the ones that seem to take great pride in chasing my truck from their yard with violent enthusiasm no matter what hour or inclement weather.

This, to me, was always how I distinguished the “dog days” of summer - those inescapably torrid summer weeks when my thighs sounded like Scotch tape being stripped off the roll each time I exited the leather seats of my truck and all creatures, great and small, slowed down as the mercury climbed.

Not until one of my professors at Western Kentucky University enlightened an entire class of 20-plus students who, like me, believed man's best friend actually was the indicator, did I get a leg up on the origin of “dog days.”

Although I am certainly not a skilled astronomer, I do enjoy the night sky and this past week I spent a couple of late nights looking skyward for the Perseid meteor shower. As promised by the folks on the Weather Channel, I caught glimpses of eight different meteors streaking across the endless ceiling of black in only two short outings and also noticed one very large star that shone brighter than any other in the sky.

The shining beacon in the night: none other than Sirius, the Dog Star. Sirius is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, and the overall brightest in the sky this time of year.

The ancient Romans believed that because Sirius was so bright, it assisted the Sun in making the unbearably high temperatures they experienced during a certain part of summer.

In truth, Sirius does not provide any heat, but it really was not a stretch of the imagination for the Romans to believe that their sultry weather was a result of the two brightest stars double-teaming Earth.

Throughout late July and early August, Sirius is on schedule with the Sun, rising and setting at the same time each morning and evening, which happens to coincide with some of the hottest days of each year.

Technically, the dog days of summer last for 40 days from July 3 through Aug. 11, but most of us associate the miserable kind of weather that we've been experiencing over the past two months as dog days even if the date on the calendar does not fit neatly within the 40-day period.

I take comfort in the fact that the ancient Romans, one of the hardiest and most intelligent cultures of all time, loathed the inevitable weeks of sweat and frustration, and I believe that everyone today would still like for these doggone dog days to, well, be gone.

- Geordon T. Howell is the outdoors writer for the Daily News. Contact him at highbrasshowell@yahoo.com.