Have you seen the Temple Grandin movie yet? I finally got a chance to see it early this week. I thought HBO did an excellent job chronicling Temple Grandin’s many accomplishments, as well as some of the huge obstacles she has faced throughout her life. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Temple Grandin, [...]
Getting to Yes by Sharon Foley
I recently finished reading Getting to Yes by Sharon Foley. What a great book! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to learn more about clicker training and positive step-by-step methods to improve their horse training. I bought this book over a year ago and have used it from time to [...]
We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee (book review)
I just finished reading We Bought a Zoo, by Benjamin Mee. What an entertaining book! This book is the true story of one daring English family that spent their life savings to buy an old, dilapidated zoo. The zoo has been shut down due to having it’s license revoked and is rife with problems, from [...]
Alex and Me: Our Knowledge of Animal Intelligence
I recently finished reading Irene Pepperburg’s most recent book, Alex and Me. When Irene Pepperburg first started working with Alex, many people scoffed and laughed at her. Parrots were thought of as “bird brains.” While it might be possible to teach them to repeat back answers to simple questions, the bird wasn’t actually “thinking” or [...]
Mark Rashid: Ground Driving 101 DVD
I recently watched one of Mark Rashid’s DVDs, Ground Driving 101 , after renting it from Giddyupflix. I was interested in watching this DVD because I love Mark Rashid’s books and would like to start with some ground driving work with a few of the rescue horses. Overall, I was not very impressed with this [...]
In a Whisper or In a Shout? Training under Time Constraints
Recently I watched a documentary film called In A Whisper. It’s a DVD of a colt starting challenge that was held in Fort Worth in 2002. The three trainers in the competition, Craig Cameron, Pat Parelli and Josh Lyons, each had 2 1/2 hours to start a two year old colt. The horses had very [...]
Lessons from Teaching Your Dog To Skateboard DVD
In the ORCA meeting several weeks ago, we watched Bill Ryan’s DVD Teaching Your Dog To Skateboard. You can see a preview video clip of this DVD on the Dogwise site here. It’s a short, but well done DVD that explains one method for teaching your dog to ride on a skateboard. The approach is [...]
What’s the best way to train an animal?
Stale Cheerios will help you learn new knowledge and techniques to take your training skills to the next level. So stick around, your animals will be grateful!
I'm a graduate student studying the science of behavior and training. On this blog I share stories of my animal training adventures, as well as tips, techniques and tricks to help you improve your training. Although most of this blog centers around training rescue horses, the ideas discussed apply equally to all species. The other animals I work with, including dogs and rats, also appear occasionally on the blog.
Mary Hunter
cheeriotrainer@gmail.com
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