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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

Drill Team Dressage and Unicycles

By on June 11, 2009 in Horse Training

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 […]

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Shaping Recipes

By on June 9, 2009 in Concepts and Terms, Dog Training

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 […]

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Going Back to Kindergarten

By on June 2, 2009 in Concepts and Terms

I’ve been reading Karen Pryor’s first book on training, Lads Before the Wind. Written in the 70s, it’s her personal account of how she learned the principles of operant conditioning and positive reinforcement training by training dolphins in Hawaii. Her park was one of the first to do this, and the book is filled with […]

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