We’re beginning a three part conversation with Mary Hunter. Mary has a masters degree in Behavior Analysis from the University of North Texas. She is the president of the Art and Science of Animal Training, the non-profit organization that puts on the Art and Science of Animal Training conference. Together with Dr. Jesus Rosales Ruiz she is the co-author of the PORTL manual. She is the presenter in our Listen and Learn audio course on Applied Behavior Analysis. And she is the author of the Stale Cheerios blog.

The blog went into a temporary hiatus while Mary worked on other projects, including the PORTAL manual. At the start of the year she brought the blog back and her posts have been such gems, I wanted to spend an afternoon talking to her about them. We begin our conversation not with the blog posts but with her masters thesis which was on desperation clicks and the effect they may have on training.