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Ticket to Ride

Lisa Eirene

About Lisa Eirene Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

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14 Comments

  1. Dawni

    We had a blast with you and Michael. You are both so amazing and fun. Plus, Chad doesn’t often get the chance to talk about MMA with someone who loves it as much as he does.

    Here is a link to the yelp page for Babushka’s, where I picked up the cake.

    I cannot wait until we get together again, sooner rather than later.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Thanks for the link! I want to check that place out. Still thinking about that cake. YUM.

      We had a great time. I’m so glad we finally did it (it had been way too long since we saw you guys). Let’s get together soon! Pick a date. 🙂

  2. Kelly @ Finding a Skinnier Me

    I think it is important for dogs to learn proper etiquette off or on leash. I do let mine off when I am hiking, but only if there are no cliffs and nobody else is around. If I see someone I immediately put them back on leash or if I spot any dangers they get put back on their leashes. But I spent a lot of time training each of my dogs on and off leash, they don’t even hesitate if I tell them to return back (even with distractions like dogs or squirrels) and they have to keep within a few feet of me. No wandering off or being so far ahead that I can barely see them.

    I won’t forget the day I was walking my oldest dog down a public street and a pit bull out of nowhere jumped the small front fence that was obviously not built to keep a dog in. This dog was on my dog in seconds, luckily my dog is smart and she kept her butt to him so he couldn’t get to her throat but he did get her ear. I was so angry and upset for a long time after that. It just burns me when people don’t properly socialize their dogs and they come out aggressive because of it. Glad to hear all she had was a scratch on her nose. Poor Bella!!

    That cake looks amazing!!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Agreed! I do sometimes see off leash dogs (usually older dogs) walking or running with their owners and I’m impressed at how good the dog is. Clearly they spent a lot of time training. The dog was right next to the owner, never strayed, checked in with the owner periodically. I hope some day Bella can be that good off leash! She’s getting better but is easily distracted by things.

      There are SO many bad dog owners out there. Sadly I’m discovering that now that we have Bella. The attack was scary and it makes me wary. We’ll definitely be more prepared next time and go back to what works — Michael taking the leash with me in front of Bella to act as a barrier when we come across other hikers. That has worked in the past and this incident was the first time we didn’t do it that way.

  3. Lori

    Bad owners and bad dogs on the trails can make the day turn in an instant. Glad Bella is okay.

    I love the Train game. We have the original one with the US map. We just jumped in an played after a brief perusal of the instructions because that is the easier way to get the hang of it. It’s fun and now that we finished a game, it is easy to see how strategy plays an important role in it all!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      She is okay now. The wound is mostly healed, which is good.

      Yes! Once we started to play it was super easy and we noticed pretty quickly that strategy is really important in the game. I can’t wait to play again!

  4. Biz

    I haven’t walked the trails near my house since our dog passed away – it’s been almost two years already! I need to fix that, well, once we get above single digit temps!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      I don’t blame you. Wait til it’s a little more tolerable outside. Are you thinking of getting another dog?

  5. Fran

    This is my worst nightmare too. I do long hikes too and Bella never gets of the leash on those walks also because I walk in areas I don’t know and if something would happen and she would ran away I wouldn’t know where to look. Lately I have often been afraid on hikes and walks in my town that something would happen like what happened to your Bella and I got afraid. But that’s not what is supposed to be and I decided to look up on the internet what to do if Bella gets attacked by another dog and how to react if an agressive dog approaches us (walk the other way is the best thing to do).

    I haven’t done a hike yet this year (as of next week I have a lot planned) but when I saw what happened in Paris last Tuesday to me it was a sign that I shouldn’t be afraid something will happen to Bella. It probably never happens and if it does I deal with it then. Hiking should be fun for the owner and the dog.

    Great hike by the way, I love reading hiking reports and see different parts of the world. Hopefully you will enjoy mine too once I start doing them again.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      I hope you do get back to hiking. I understand the fear. For awhile we quit hiking because Bella was having so much fear. She would bark at every person and dog we met on the trail. It was stressful for all of us! But she’s gotten so good and barely barks at people on the trails and stuff. She’s growing up. 🙂

      I need to read up on dog attacks too. It happen so freakin fast I didn’t have a chance to even react. I need to read up on that stuff for the future, just in case…

  6. Fran

    I have another question for you: do you have blogs on your blogroll from people that hike a lot too? I am looking for more hiking blogs to read for the above mentioned reason: love seeing where other people hike and live.

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Check out http://trailsnail.com/. She takes AMAZING photos of her hikes!

  7. CARLA

    SO GLAD BELLA IS OK!!!

    1. Lisa Eirene

      Yeah she is okay. It was scary though.

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