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Mary Hunter and her horse Apollo


On this site I share stories of my animal training adventures, information about the science of animal training and behavior, and tips and advice to help you improve your training.

Join me as we explore the best training strategies for creating fast learning, effective communication, and enthusiastic, willing animals.

If you’re new to Stale Cheerios, I recommend that you start by visiting this page to learn more about Stale Cheerios and that you visit my Top Posts page.

~Mary Hunter

Recent posts from the StaleCheerios blog

summer weave poles

Finding new reinforcers

By on October 3, 2013 in Concepts and Terms, Dog Training

I’m working on a project right now about reinforcers. (More on this soon in an upcoming post!) So, as a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about reinforcement, reinforcers, and the different types of things trainers use during training to reward behavior. Many horse clicker trainers primarily use food during training to reinforce correct behavior. […]

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Amusement parks and cold war spies

By on October 2, 2013 in Other Species

There's a great article in the most recent Smithsonian Magazine about Bob Bailey and Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE). Many animal trainers are familiar with Bob Bailey because of the operant conditioning workshops that he teaches with chickens. However, Bob Bailey first became interested in animal behavior and training in the 1950s and spent decades training […]

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Barrel racing for dogs

By on September 15, 2013 in Dog Training

Here’s a fun video from dog trainer Donna Hill. In the video, you’ll see some of the steps she used to teach her dog to run a barrel racing pattern. The video shows the individual component behaviors that Donna taught first and then illustrates how she used back chaining to create the final behavior. Watch […]

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chloe-at-the-window

Chloe’s first rat agility course

By on September 10, 2013 in Rat (and Mouse) Training

Chloe, my agouti and white rat, is still pretty new to clicker training. I started training with her this summer and she has learned several simple tricks, including climbing onto a brick, going through a PVC pipe tunnel, and going over a cardboard jump. This week, I decided to combine the tunnel trick and the […]

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