Current Category: Swiss Mountain Dog

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.

Goddamned DogSwiss Mountain Dog

One More Hill To Climb

The first time I saw Addie in person she was nine weeks old and shrieking to get out of the crate she’d been flown to me ...
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Body Language

Dear Goddamned Dog, Much is made of dog body language in my circles, and many an assumption has been made of a dog's emotional state based ...
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Training A Thing

Dear Goddamned Dog, Your brilliance is always lurking, but today I watched you train your Thing.
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Goddamned DogSwiss Mountain Dog

Crunching

Dear Goddamned Dog, While I appreciate your sudden bent toward tidiness, your new habit of finding pieces of ice melt that have fallen from people's shoes ...
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Goddamned DogSwiss Mountain Dog

Shredding

Dear Goddamned Dog, This weather is not my fault. Not the wind, not the cold, not the hooded men with machines, not the salt on the ...
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Leftovers

Dear Goddamned Dog, I understand how bonding it is for families to eat meals together, and also that your current Kong amuse bouche of banana, beef, ...
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Birthday Cheer

Dear Goddamned Dog, It's that time again - the time when we both get a year older. I must say it's nice to share a birthday ...
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Hedgehog Hinting

Dear Goddamned Dog, This computer provides the employment that pays for your organic unicorn meat and bluebonnet petal food, your gear, your toys and your not-insubstantial ...
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Goddamned DogSwiss Mountain Dog

Private Bathroom Requirements

Dear Goddamned Dog, You are Swiss. This means you like snow. Alps. Cheese. Cuckoo clocks. Really even grass trimmed with hand scissors. Edelweiss. That means that ...
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Ocean Recall

 Dear Goddamned Dog, I do understand that the ocean took you by surprise, but trust me, you will recover. I’d like to remind you that it ...
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