three-dog night-with antedating(1932)

[sclements at NEO.RR.COM]

An interesting additional hit using GenealogyBank--

25 January 1936 _Omaha(NE) World-Herald_ 12/1
Dog Nights
Dr. Phil Redgwick says these are three dog nights we've been having.
Which led James Gilbert, an innocent, trusting soul, to inquire what are three dog nights, and wasn't the doctor confusing something with dog days?
"Eskimos," replied Dr. Sedgwick, who has mushed his sedan through whitest Sarpy county, "do not reckon cold by degrees.  They use dogs instead.  A one-dog night is pretty chilly.  It means that one dog sleeps with each Eskimo to warm him.  A two-dog night means a pooch on each side of every sleeper and the thermometer far below Fahrenheit, if there were and Fahrenheits around.  A three-dog night--well, you get the idea.
The truthful man of science assured Mr. Gilbert that there are times inside the Arctic circle when the inhabitants reckon the temperature by saying--
"This is a whole kennel night."  It never gets any colder than that.

Sam Clements

---- "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote: 
> At 7/25/2014 09:34 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >The practice, if not the English phrase must go back to the earliest days
> >of canine domestication. I guess the dogs call it the same thing.
> 
> I'm wondering if "<n>-dog might" can be found in writings about the 
> early Antarctic exploration -- 1900s and 1910s.
> 
> Joel 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org