I’m back in Dallas now and am starting to recover from my whirlwind of a summer. I spent 13 fantastic weeks running the horse program at a camp for children and adults with special needs. However, the campers and horses kept me busy 24/7, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time for much [...]
Some Recent Photos of Shiloh
Shiloh is a young dun QH gelding who I’ve been playing with at the rescue where I volunteer. He spent 90 days at the beginning of this year with a local trainer who mainly uses the Parelli program. He is curious, but shy, and prior to training, he was incredibly skeptical of people. The trainer [...]
Paden Smells His Tail (Again!)
My friend Dawn took a great series of photos the other day of Paden smelling his tail. This is something we’ve been working on to teach him how to stretch his neck and begin working on lateral flexion. I took a break from riding, hopped into the pasture, and easily got him to stretch both [...]
Horses Are For Riding? (sometimes!)
I spend a lot of time on the ground these days. Not because I’m getting bucked off, but because I choose to. As I’ve explored different natural horsemanship methods over the past couple of years, I’ve learned about all sorts of new ways to play with a horse without climbing into the saddle– from obstacle [...]
Mustang Poker
I’ve been watching Carolyn Resnick’s Waterhole Rituals DVD. I don’t agree with a lot of her horse psychology and dominance theory approach. However, she does make some good points. In the beginning of the DVD she talks briefly about the power of curiosity as a motivator. Instead of chasing our horses around and around a [...]
Amazing animals from the WEIT blog
I really like Jerry Coyne’s blog. (Coyne’s a University of Chicago professor, who I actually had for a bio class. He’s recently started a blog to promote his new book Why Evolution Is True.). Over the past few days, he’s posted some links of some really awesome animals, you should check them out. Sheepdogs and [...]
Rainy Day Fun.
It rained all day Wednesday. And most of the day Thursday. Then, it rained all day today. Ginger usually spends most of the day outside, so it was a pretty lousy week, in her opinion. So, we decided to have a bit of fun this afternoon.
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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