Meet Your Dog Trainer

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Hi, I'm Victoria. I'm the owner of The Wineglass Ranch and the Canine Communication Center. I've been training dogs all my life. I started with hunting hounds, moved to bird dogs, then to AKC obedience and now herding dogs. I am fluent in traditional and positive training methods and am always learning. I work with owners and all breeds to establish a solid bond of mutual respect.

Our trainers are fluent in positive as well as traditional training methods. This results in a blending of the best of both worlds. Just like kids, dogs cannot be trained with treats alone. They must have structure and boundaries to thrive.  And just like children, we start out with plenty of praise, treats, and rewards to solidify our wants. Once those are in place we gradually remove the treats and keep our praise and affection in place. Dogs want to earn their rewards and know what the limits are. To do this we begin to introduce the word "No" and boundaries. 

Entry-level obedience involves a generous helping of treats and praise. Advanced obedience may incorporate many tools. Including the use of toys, tugs, prong collars, E-collars, training flags, and any other variety of tools along with extended affection and playtime. Obedience training involves a combination of luring, shaping, and operant conditioning. 

1. Luring - Physically lure the dog into the desired position with a toy/food item. Once your dog assumes the position, they are rewarded with the toy/food reward.
2. Shaping -  Reward incremental baby-steps towards your goal behavior. Say you want your dog to fetch a throw off the couch. You first teach him to go to the couch, Next to touch the throw. Then to grab the throw in their mouth, and finally to bring the throw to you. 
3. Operant Conditioning - Operant conditioning happens when your dog offers a wanted behavior (for example sits), followed by a valuable consequence - treat, praise, or a toy. Your dog EARNS the reward. 

Aggression, fear, and phobias are addressed using four primary modes of training:

1. Classical Conditioning - Teaching your dog a new emotional response to a specific trigger such as dogs on leash, men with beards, people with ball caps, etc. by following the trigger with a feel-good warm-and-fuzzy consequence. 
2. Counter Conditioning - Replacing an unacceptable behavior, with new polite behavior, in response to a trigger. For example, say your dog rudely jumps on guests. Teach your dog to walk away from the front door, as your guests step inside. Your dog cannot walk away from the front door and jump on your guests simultaneously. 
3. Punishment - Decreases the frequency of a behavior by following the behavior with an undesirable consequence. 
4. Desensitization - Desensitization involves making your dog LESS sensitive to his particular triggers. The goal of desensitization is to eliminate or reduce your dog's exaggerated, emotion-based reaction to a trigger. Does your dog have a particular trigger?

These in-house puppy training programs are built on the same platform as the obedience program for older dogs, but only available for puppies under one year of age. Positive reinforcement often gives adequate rewards for desired behavior, but without also training the puppy that focusing on you is the ONLY way the puppy will get what he wants, the puppy may perform only when they see there is food. So this program focuses on helping puppies and owners alike, understand that unwanted behaviors don't work and that only polite behaviors earn rewards. Our programs teach leadership and communication skills to humans and impulse control in puppies. 

Through the program, we continually introduce exercises that help owners realize that it's not just about giving treats, it's about moving in ways and at speeds that make the training fun. With speed being the key, if you take too long to decide the next step, or have gaps where you can't decide what to do, the dog's attention may drift away from you.  This program focuses on teaching your puppy that focusing on you and behaving politely are fun. We do this by teaching a handful of core exercises that can be used in may types of situations to keep your puppy out of trouble and to perform more appropriate replacement behaviors instead. 

I struggled for months, trying to get my dog to listen to me. He would pull on the leash, bolt through doors, and invade my personal space. He was getting bigger and I was completely losing control. I mentioned this to a friend and they suggested I contact Victoria at the Canine Communication Center. Within a very short time, Harlow was actually waiting for me to tell him what to do. His attention was focused on me for a change. I was able to take him anywhere on a loose leash and he politely waited for me to go through the door first! I won't wait so long to sign up for a program when I get my next puppy. 

She's an amazing trainer and Harlow loves her!

Sandra Kimmel

I can't thank you enough for all the guidance and support you've given to Ranger and me. I know it's not rocket science but you've broken it down into manageable pieces and it's not overwhelming. You are what I needed, what we needed and I thank you so much for taking the time and working with us. I have to say I feel like you're a friend. I appreciate that more than you will know. I will fill out the review and Ranger and I will pose for a picture because I do believe you are a miracle worker and a dog whisperer. And you truly have brought a better quality of life to both of us. So from the bottom of our hearts, we say thank you.

Ranger and Wendy

Our puppy class was an open relaxed atmosphere with breaks in training for off-leash play. Victoria’s attitude and kindness toward training the dog’s owners was amazing. She was always open and willing to problem solve any questions we had about what we were working on and her ability to demonstrate with our own dog to ensure we knew what to do was beyond helpful. 

Although it was great to be outside in an open space, Hilo had a much harder time demonstrating the skills he had mastered at home. Plus, Dave said the one drawback was that the ranch is The Wineglass Ranch, but we were never offered a glass of wine!

N and D with Hilo

I first took Etta to the Canine Communication Center to have her herding ability with sheep tested. Not surprisingly, she showed aggression toward the sheep, so Victoria recommended that I enroll her in her five-week obedience training course. That course played a significant role in Etta’s development into a well-behaved companion.  Using both positive reinforcement and specific leadership techniques, Etta quickly saw me as her pack leader and transformed from an anxious dog to a confident and obedient companion. Since we completed Victoria’s obedience course, Etta and I have continued to grow, including Etta successfully socializing with other dogs off-leash.

 Janice L. and Etta

 In October my fiancé and I adopted an Australian shepherd rescue dog from Western Australian Shepherd Rescue(WASR). We wanted a dog to fit our active lifestyle, a dog that could accompany us in various outdoor activities. We were soon introduced to a pup by the name of Tinker-Bell, now known as Boo. A Halloween born puppy that has grown into a beautiful 1 year old puppy stole our hearts, and connected with us immediately. However, a few days after getting her we found out there were some behavior issues and improper socialization skills towards other dogs when we would go outside for a walk/run. As the days and months progressed her attitude seemed to get worse and worse to where my fiancé and I were at a point where we couldn't even take her out to walk during the day. We were restricted to early mornings or late nights so we could avoid other people and their dogs. We were at a loss of what to do because inside with us she is the sweetest, most loving puppy anyone could ask for but when you open that door to go outside it was like something took over her body and she began to bark and lunge towards other dogs. These actions made other people afraid and not want to approach her or us. We both had a feeling that she wasn't aggressive but that it was something else. We decided to hire a professional trainer to work with us and our dog. We hired a lady from Bark Busters, which I would never recommend to anyone! She insisted that our dog was aggressive and that we needed to rethink what we really wanted to do with her. After about a month of using what she told us to do with training, the problems weren’t getting any better it was actually getting worse. At this point we really didn’t know what else to do, so we contacted WASR to see if they had any suggestions. The lady from the Aussie rescue wanted to help us out so she began asking around, and it was at a stock dog trial where she met Ms. Victoria Long. The lady from the Aussie rescue brought our dog to Victoria long to see if she could help. After meeting and working with Boo for about an hour or so she determined that Boo was just a super high drive dog that hasn't been socialized properly. Since she is a rescue her past was unknown to us. The lady from the Aussie rescue contacted me and insisted that I come meet Victoria and work with her myself. A week or so later my fiancé and I met with Victoria to see what she could do with Boo. We met for an hour and a half, and in that time Ms. Long shared valuable knowledge as well as training techniques that were very beneficial! We soon found out that it was more of what we were doing wrong than what the dog was doing wrong. Ms. Long spent quality time with Boo running her alongside a 4wheeler for exercise, as well as introducing Boo to different dogs while I was in control as she was teaching me how to handle every situation. She proved to us that Boo is just full of high energy, and needs a lot of exercise. We can't even begin to express how thankful we are for Ms. Long’s time and guidance in helping not only our dog but also as owners as well. She really gave us hope towards actually being able to live an active and controlled lifestyle with Boo. We would sincerely recommend Ms. Victoria Long to anyone who is in need of a dog trainer. Thank you again Victoria  for all of your help. Anytime we need guidance you will be first on our list of trainers to contact!!!
 

Matt Steffens
 

Hi Victoria, I wanted to give you an update on Otis' progress. He has become a VERY good boy over the past couple of months! 

I ended up getting a screen divider to block his view of people / other dogs as they walk through my office, and I make him stay on "place" (his dog bed) while I'm working, and both have seemed to help so much! He no longer lunges at dogs that walk by or barks when he hears another dog bark somewhere in the office, and has become much calmer overall. I've even had coworkers compliment Otis on how well behaved he is!                       

He has become such a great leash walker too! I ended up getting an e-collar for him, which has been a game changer for us. I've only had to use it a couple of times on the lowest levels, and he's stopped pulling on the leash and stopped lunging at people, dogs, cars and bikes that pass by. He seems so much happier on walks since he's getting constant praise and frequent treats when we're out.  I've been working on his impulse  control, practicing sit/wait where I walk away on the sidewalk and having him lay down/wait while I throw the tennis ball for my other dog. It seems to be helping quite a bit with his overall behavior.                             

Just wanted to say thanks for all of your help in getting him to this point!                               

Thanks so much!

Jen R.

We're so proud of our super sniffer today!! 

I had to write to share the excitement with you.

Lark competed in her first AKC scent work event and earned her first 2 placings: 1st in Interior Search and 2nd in Exterior Search We had two incorrect alerts from her in container and buried but it gives us something to work on!

Thank you for giving us such a strong foundation in the sport to build on. Feel free to share with whomever, wherever.

Yorke, Nate, and Lark