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Mary Hunter and her horse Apollo


On this site I share stories of my animal training adventures, information about the science of animal training and behavior, and tips and advice to help you improve your training.

Join me as we explore the best training strategies for creating fast learning, effective communication, and enthusiastic, willing animals.

If you’re new to Stale Cheerios, I recommend that you start by visiting this page to learn more about Stale Cheerios and that you visit my Top Posts page.

~Mary Hunter

Recent posts from the StaleCheerios blog

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Chewie’s Diary Week 6: Traveling

By on March 19, 2025 in Chewie’s Diary

Chewie and I have both been traveling recently! I just returned from a wonderful three days in Chicago for this year’s ClickerExpo conference.  My Friday morning lecture at ClickerExpo! The weekend was filled with lots of learning, as well as opportunities to catch up with old friends and meet many new friends.  I felt honored […]

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Chewie’s Diary Week 4: Baselines

By on March 5, 2025 in Chewie’s Diary

Earlier this year, I read Rachaël Draaisma’s book “Scentwork for Horses.”  One exercise Rachaël includes in the book is creating a comfort map. A comfort map depicts where your horse is happy, as well as which places cause tension that may impact your horse’s comfort and ability to learn. I thought it would be fun […]

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Chewie explores some mats

Chewie’s Diary Week 3: Reinforcers

By on February 26, 2025 in Chewie’s Diary

Chewie is more settled in at the new barn. She seems more confident about her surroundings and about interacting with me. Whether we are training or just hanging out, I want my interactions with Chewie to be based in positive reinforcement.  Since her arrival, I have been exploring what Chewie likes. Or, in other words, […]

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Chewie’s Diary Week 2: Always training

By on February 19, 2025 in Chewie’s Diary

Chewie is now in a pasture with a white donkey named Blanca, and an older appaloosa mare, Allie. After the move, Chewie decided quickly that Allie was most definitely her long-lost best friend.  We’ve been having some bitterly cold weather here in north Texas. I’ve been checking on Chewie a couple of times a day, […]

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Shaping challenges: Skinner & the leaping dog

By on February 14, 2025 in Dog Training

On Tuesday, I lectured about animal training to an undergraduate introductory behavior analysis course. We had great fun discussing how positive reinforcement and an understanding of behavior analysis can help make training more efficient and more enjoyable for both the animal and trainer. Most of the students were not familiar with ideas such as clicker […]

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Chewie’s Diary Week 1: Arrival

By on February 12, 2025 in Chewie’s Diary

I have a new horse! Chewie and I have just wrapped up our first week together. In this post, I want to introduce you to Chewie and tell you what we’ve been doing so far.  Where did Chewie come from? I adopted Chewie from Habitat for Horses, a rescue group in Alvin, Texas. Baby Chewie […]

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