One thing I’ve been doing more of this semester is rat training. I started some clicker training with my rat Georgie last fall. However, I didn’t get too far past teaching food delivery and conditioning the clicker. So far this fall we’ve worked on a handful of tricks, including targeting, standing on a platform (including [...]
How do you evaluate trainers?
We are going today to see Buck, the new documentary about horse trainer Buck Brannaman. If you’re not familiar with Buck, you can watch the trailer on the film’s website. The film is suppose to be great, it’s won quite a few awards, including the audience choice award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. (I [...]
Training with Urchins and Sea Stars!
What animals can’t be trained?? I had a lot of surprised friends several years ago when I did some clicker training and trick training with my goldfish Blaze. Many species are much more capable of learning than we give them credit for. A woman named Barbara Ray recently posted on one of the discussion groups [...]
Life’s Ruff for Homeless Pets (your help is needed!)
Life can be rough for shelter dogs. Thousands of dogs enter shelters every day, many because of behavior or training problems that could have been fixable. Marine Mammal trainer Chris Dignan is on a mission to help shelter dogs by educating pet owners and promoting positive training methods. Life’s Ruff is an entertaining and very [...]
Walt Disney needs some Clicker Training!
This is a humorous little clip that has been circulating around the internet. Its well worth watching for a few laughs, if you haven’t seen it yet. The clip is a 1941 Disney short called “How to Ride a Horse.” Now, while watching, I couldn’t help thinking how much this horse could benefit from a [...]
Clicker Training Step 1: Teach Food Delivery
I’m (finally) starting to have some success with clicker training the rats. (Check out Georgie’s debut on youtube in this post, Rat Clicker Training Success.) Who would have thought training a rat would be this hard? In this post I’ll explain some of the initial troubles I had and describe how I finally trained the [...]
10 tips to improve your clicker training
Clicker training is GREAT for dogs, cats, and horses. (And even lobsters and goldfish!) With clicker training, animals learn fast and are generally more interested and engaged in the training process. However, like anything else, clicker training is a skill. Being skilled at clicker training takes time and practice. Here are 10 tips that will [...]
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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