Once a child who couldn’t resist “borrowing” the neighborhood dogs, Marjie Alonso grew up to make her passion her profession. She spent decades as a dog trainer, behavior consultant, and executive director of animal behavior nonprofits. Over the years she shared her life with Emma, an American Eskimo, Betty and Addie, a pair of Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs, Nellie, her first beagle, and now Alice, along with countless foster dogs. A devoted parent and storyteller, Marjie writes with humor and heart about the joy, mischief, and everyday conversations that make life with dogs so deeply meaningful.

 

Marjie has just completed a memoir about taking her sons to meet their biological mothers in Paraguay and a reckoning about adoption. She writes essays for publication, and has a weekly Substack.

Dear Goddamned Dog,

I’d like to talk to you about covers and beds. You see, you have fur, which automatically makes you warm, and therefore technically able to sleep without covers.

I however, do need covers to keep warm. Also, I bought a king-sized bed to share, not so that you could hog it, extending your mass across the entire mattress. Note that when you’ve spread yourself to roughly eighty inches square of surface area, that only allows you to be about ½” thick. No wonder you need covers.

Regardless, it is not nice to then ball yourself up in the center of the bed, taking all the covers with you as you form a dollop of taunting warmth I can only steal a corner of from time to time.

While I’ve learned to accommodate by hiding a small throw under my pillow to prevent late night hypothermia, it seems unfair, somehow, that you’ve got the comforter, the blanket and the sheet. The 1200 thread count, 100% brushed Egyptian cotton sheet.

Today I bought a fiber-fill twin sized comforter for your dog bed. I’d like you to know that I intend this to be for your use and not mine. Just to be clear.

Love,

Your Person

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