Marjie Alonso is a former executive director of small international nonprofits, where she promoted evidence-based education, developed professional standards, and acted as a “civilian-to-scientist” facilitator in all things animal behavior and training.

Recently retired, she now writes full-time, which means spending her days telling the stories she loves to tell. 

She is currently completing a memoir about taking her sons to meet their birth families in Paraguay, and her awakening to the complexities of the adoption triad of birth families, adoptive families, and the children relinquished and adopted without choice or agency. TL;DR it’s complicated! 

Marjie publishes a weekly newsletter on Substack, Pieces of String Too Small To Use, where she shares observations about the often nonsensical, random, funny, painful, maddening, and every-day events in life. 

She also has a more sporadic newsletter, Dear Goddamned Dog. This years-long conversation with many dogs approaches with humor the love and frustration dogs bring to our lives—even when we’re supposed to be experts in animal behavior.