I hate stale Cheerios. I’m not too fond of plain Cheerios anyways, but they’re absolutely disgusting if they’re stale.
Ginger, my dog, loves stale Cheerios. Jiggle a box of the horrible things and she’ll come flying at a gallop from halfway across the house. She love, love, loves them.
Much of training boils down to finding something the animal is willing to work for and then designing a great training plan so that you know when and what to reward. For Ginger, stale Cheerios are perfect for getting her excited about training.
Actually, Ginger adores cereal of any kind, fresh or stale. Lucky Charms are also pretty high on her list of favorites. I discovered that Ginger liked stale Cheerios in 2008, when searching for some sort of little tidbit to use for a reward while we practiced clicker training.
The horses, on the other hand, seem to really enjoy Fruit Loops, carrots, pears and candy canes.
The rats? They’ll eat just about anything!
Of course, there are plenty of non-food items that we can use as rewards during training, including play time, petting and scratches, and more.
What rewards to you use when training your animals?
Follow my blog as we explore how to effectively motivate and communicate with our animals using positive reinforcement training methods.
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