This week in ORCA we watched a really neat video of a dog learning to match objects. We often don’t think of matching as a complex skill because we are very familiar with matching and have had a lot of practice with it. However, it’s pretty complicated! Matching can also be a hard skill to [...]
If you give a horse a cookie…
Many riding instructors and horse clubs will tell you NEVER to hand feed treats to a horse. This will spoil the horse and teach him bad manners by encouraging him to be pushy, rude and to beg for treats. Even worse, you’ll encourage your horse to nip and bite. At least, that was what I [...]
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 [...]
Autumn Blaze learns to lead (video)
I’ve been working with Autumn Blaze for about two weeks now. Dawn and I recently brought her to the rescue’s main property. She’s a big stocky mare, 1/4 thoroughbred and 3/4 Quarter horse/paint and will be four this spring. She’s had no training up to this point. Autumn has been fun to work with–she’s laid [...]
Kay Laurence: Assessing Your Animal Training Skills
Are you good at training animals? Are you great at shaping, but not so good at putting behavior under stimulus control? You know you’re a better trainer than your next door neighbor, but you’re nowhere near the level of the expert trainer who runs your agility class…. Good, better, worse, best, intermediate, beginner, expert. The [...]
Alexandra Kurland and Loopy Training
At the Art and Science of Animal Training conference this year Alexandra Kurland spoke about loopy training, which is a concept she has been developing over the past year. Loopy training was the focus of a clinic I did with Alexandra Kurland last fall. The more I hear about it, the more it makes sense [...]
How long does it take to train a horse?
Question: How long does it take to train a horse? Answer: As long as it takes. This is a follow up post to my previous post, In a Whisper or In a Shout? Training under Time Restraints, which discussed training unhandled colts in 2 1/2 hours. Do you remember the story of the tortoise and [...]
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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