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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

amy ipad

Amy goes high-tech (video)

By on April 21, 2013 in Rat (and Mouse) Training

I’ve started teaching Amy to use my iPad! Actually, this is really a project I started on about two years ago. In 2011, I worked some on teaching Ginger, my parent’s dog, to use my iPad. Although she did learn to touch a square button on the iPad, we never really progressed past that point. […]

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Willy Wonka Learns to Target (video)

Willy Wonka Learns to Target (video)

By on April 14, 2013 in Other Species

Here’s Willy Wonka, the pot-bellied pig that I wrote about in yesterday’s post. He was such a smarty and caught on to clicker training so fast. He had clicker training and targeting mastered in about five minutes flat! I started with a short session introducing him to the sound of the clicker and then clicking […]

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Willy Wonka the pig

Some smart sanctuary pigs

By on April 13, 2013 in Other Species

My friend Bonnie volunteers at a nearby sanctuary for farm animals. Last weekend, I got a chance to go with her and visit the animals! We also did a bit of training while we were there. The sanctuary has an assortment of critters, including pigs, horses, donkeys, sheep, chickens, and a few dogs and cats. […]

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Izzy

Happy Anniversary

By on March 30, 2013 in Rat (and Mouse) Training

Last weekend marked the one year anniversary of when I adopted my three SPCA rats. The girls (Amy, Chloe, and Izzy) got a small dish of chocolate cake on Monday to celebrate and I was able to capture some fun photos of them chowing down. Rats love sweets and they were quite happy to get […]

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