Are you interested in animal training?

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


Using Shaping to Teach New Behaviors

Shaping is a powerful way to build behavior. Animals who understand shaping truly understand that they can control their environment and that their behavior earns them rewards. This is different from training with coercive methods (punishment, negative reinforcement) where the animal learns to perform or offer behaviors only to avoid the correction or get rid […]

Continue Reading | 7

Stimulus Control and the Do Nots

  As I’ve talked about before, cues are powerful only if we can get them under stimulus control. (What is stimulus control?) The animal must be able to distinguish between a variety of different cues, know which behavior goes with which cue and know not to perform the behaviors unless the cue is given. I’ve […]

Continue Reading | 0

The Four Quadrants of Training

Have some reading time? Here’s a great and thorough look at the four quadrants of training (positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment) written by Katie Bartlett, an equine clicker trainer. Many of her examples deal with horses, but the theory and philosophy applies to much more than just horses. The article can be […]

Continue Reading | 1

Drill Team Dressage and Unicycles

Putting on a drill pattern with 10 girls long-lining 10 ponies would be tough enough. Now, how about doing it with all 10 girls riding unicyles! These girls have a bunch of talent and they also have some very well behaved, well trained ponies. Riding a unicyle is hard enough, I would think it would […]

Continue Reading | 0

Shaping Recipes

Many positive trainers are fond of of saying that an animal can be taught to do anything it is physically and mentally capable of doing. Behaviors are often taught through shaping–using successive approximations towards a final goal. (For instance, a trainer could teach a horse to put it’s nose in a trailer, then put two […]

Continue Reading | 3