About K. Marie Alto

K. Marie Alto is an American researcher, writer, and co-founder of Toe Beans, a direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform powered by authoritative and research-backed dog and cat care educational content.

Toe beans is dedicated to the improvement of the life of every fur child and their parents’.

Marie has over 20 years of experience as a pet momma. She is passionate about all thing’s dogs and cats. Her favorite research topics include dog and cat behavior, general wellness, health, and nutrition amongst others.

She is also very concerned with and loves educating pet parents about sustainability in the pet industry, dog and cat product safety, and how to avoid unsafe and toxic dog and cat products.

The way she sees it, raw material and ingredient integrity and quality in dog and cat products are an integral part of helping our fur children live longer, healthier and happier lives.

She loves sharing her personal journey and experience as a pet parent via her blog and Facebook page where she currently has more than 50K followers (@furrytoebeans). K. Marie lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two handsome furry boys.

After suddenly losing her first kitty to cancer and then in 2018 losing the second one to a combination of kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, and diabetes, Marie decided to channel her grief into something positive: helping educate pet parents.

Certifications & Continuing Education

Marie spends large portions of her free time reading medical journals to learn more about cat and dog conditions and how they are best treated. She believes a better informed pet parent will be more keenly aware of subtle changes in their fur babies enabling more timely veterinary care. In addition the pet parent will be better prepared to ask questions when meeting with veterinary professionals and better able to advocate for their animals.

Most recently Marie completed training to earn the Cat Friendly Advocate Certification from the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP).

Marie has also completed the Cat and Dog First Aid course provided by the American Red Cross.

The Pet Parent’s Need for a Reliable Source of Pet Parent Education

The internet can be a wild place. Finding credible, reliable, authoritative, and unbiased information about pets online can be challenging and confusing for many pet parents.

The pervasiveness of affiliate marketing combined with the invasion of (oftentimes toxic) dog and cat products made overseas has spurred the creation of millions of thin content pet blogs whose only purpose is to sell cheaply made and low-quality products rather than educating.

Toe beans^® was born in response to the ever-growing pet parents’ need for a reliable, trustworthy, and research-backed source of dog and cat care education and safe products.

Buoyed by the rapid success of her blog and its fast growing readership in 2020 Marie decided to devote resources to researching, developing, and launching a small line of unique, small-batch, and certifiably better dog and cat supplies made in the USA using only USA-sourced ingredients and raw materials.

The line is currently exclusively available on toe beans.

K. Marie’s 101 Pet Parents Book Series

Marie believes that empowering pet parents with knowledge has a tremendous effect on both their pets and their own well-being.

Informed and knowledgeable pet parents make better decisions for their fur children, thus improving their lives.

She also believes that healthy and happy pets make healthy and happy people. To further her mission to help educate pet parents, Marie developed the 101 pet parents dog and cat book series.

Available in both paperback and eBook format, the series is intended to assist new pet parents in navigating the joys of pet parenthood.

• Dog Grooming 101: How to Uncover and Maintain your Pup’s Natural Beauty.
• Cat Grooming 101: How to Uncover and Maintain your Cat’s Natural Beauty.
• Dog Parenting 101: A Beginner's Guide to Raising a Pup into a Happy, Healthy, and Confident Dog.
• Cat Parenting 101: A Beginner's Guide to Raising a Kitty into a Happy, Healthy, and Confident Cat.
• Dog and Cat Parenting 101: A Beginners' Guide to Raising Fur Children into Happy, Healthy, and Confident Dogs and Cats.
• Dog & Cat Grooming 101: How to Uncover and Maintain your Furry Children's Natural Beauty.

Check out Marie’s author page on amazon as well as all her titles available on Amazon books.

Find out why more than 50K pet parents in the USA follow her on Facebook and join the conversation or simply drop her a line to share your stories about your fur children she is always happy to hear from other pet parents.

Marie also loves sharing her perspectives and expertise about dog and cats. Need a quote or perhaps a guest speaker for your podcast or interview? Feel free to reach out with any SME inquiries at inquiries [at] toe-beans.com.