Mighty weak? Yeah, sure

LADY'S STILL PRETTY STRONG.

Our vet told me a couple years ago that our 11-year-old Lady was losing muscle mass in "her lower body," which, I assume, means her legs.

I don't think so. Walk Lady, and you'll quickly see how weak her legs are.

The other day, we hooked Lady (12 when this was written) on this metal cord that's covered with plastic; she took off after a squirrel so violently that she broke her harness.

Today, we hooked her to the same cord in the backyard. Naturally, that squirrel showed up again. She didn't break her new harness this time, but she did destroy her leash. Snapped it right off.

Mighty weak. R-i-i-g-h-t.

My wife joked that it's a good thing the leash snapped; she might have taken the whole fence down otherwise.

Update (Aug. 19, 2013): I have to admit that Lady has lost muscle mass in her hind end. Another vet showed me where to push gently, and I could feel it. Still, Lady surges powerfully when she wants to.

NOTE: Lady passed on Sept. 17, 2016, and now we have a beagle named Dixie.

Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More entries from the Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2015)

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• OOH! OOH! The stereophonic huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a steal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!