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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

Riding the pony Tex

Tex Moves Forward

By on January 26, 2011 in Horse Training

Tex is moving forward under saddle. At least, that’s the goal! Recently, I posted a bit of video footage from Tex’s second ride. He’s had about half a dozen rides now, most about 10-15 minutes long. We’ve been playing around with stop and go, as well as steering. I want Tex to be really confident […]

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Tex is a Smart Pony!

Tex is a Smart Pony!

By on January 24, 2011 in Horse Training

Tex the pony and I have been working on getting really, really good at backing up. This is one skill we’ve really been focusing on for the past several clicker training sessions. Backing up is good for Tex for two reasons. (Actually, there are probably a lot more reasons!) 1. Tex is quickly becoming a […]

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Stale Cheerios: Best of 2010

By on January 21, 2011 in News and Updates

It’s late January, but I still wanted to put together a short Best of 2010 list. This post features the 10 best posts of last year. I picked most of the posts on this list because of the number of hits and comments they received–I know you all really enjoyed reading them. They are also […]

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conner

Connor Moves Faster with Smaller Steps

By on January 20, 2011 in Horse Training

It seems a bit counter-intuitive. If we break a training task down into more steps, it should take longer. However, the opposite is usually true. Smaller steps can get us to our goal quicker and often result in better quality behavior. This came in handy several weeks ago when we picked up Connor from the […]

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