Lily, building stamina

Maya and Serena and I took Lily on a good stamina-building hike this afternoon. Four miles of mostly hilly terrain, of course there was downhill as well as uphill, but it always seems like there's more of the latter.

Lily was bringing up the rear for most of today's hike, but she kept up. Her legs are the shortest by far so it takes her more steps and more effort to cover the amount of ground that Serena can in far fewer steps. But she's fairly young and energetic and she's happy and excited to be out.

She facility to avoiding entanglements with the leash makes me believe she had been chained. She's low to the ground so the leash attached to her collar would often get under her legs, but she would lift her leg and get the leash out from under her on her own. I never had to stop and fix it like I sometimes do for Maya and Serena.

We kept coming back to this stream today for a nice cool
drink and a welcome break.

Lily's short legs had to work extra hard to
keep up, but she did.

If you look closely you can see a fairly large black snake
on that log. Harmless, but we kept our distance.

Serena was in the lead all day.

My little girl is getting grey.

She may have been behind us much of the
time, but whenever I stopped and looked back
Lily's tail was wagging.

Dogwoods are still in bloom.

Today's four mile route