Sad story reported dog and old women seized by enemy (4,2,3)

'sad story' is the definition.

'reported dog and old women seized by enemy' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'old' could be 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English) and 'o' is present in the answer.
'women' could be 'w' and 'w' is found within the answer.
'enemy' could be 'foe' (I've seen this before) and 'foe' is located in the leftover letters.
The remaining letters 'tale' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?