Making Dog Agility Obstacles ...

[kewpalace]

Sort of a spin-off from the other thread - using agility obstacles to exercise your dog! I have a 3 yo Heeler I inherited from my farrier. He is a GREAT dog!

We go on walks in the hills behind my house which is great exercise, but I also want to do some agility obstacles with him (got to practice at a dog event last fall and we both had fun), which means I have to get them. I’d rather make them - give me something to do, too, before hand.

Anyone have any suggestions, plans, dimensions, etc., for making various obstacles?

[GraceLikeRain]

If you have a local club you might be able to find second hand equipment people want to out for new stuff. I’ve heard of people putting together pvc jumps but if you aren’t interested in competing there is no reason you cannot get creative with materials. Brush fence, rubber tire, etc. could all be fun and inexpensive. You can also do two by two training (Susan Garrett) with plungers if you want to look at teaching weaves indoors.

[Bicoastal]

Google, buy PVC, and a PVC cutter. http://www.freewebs.com/hmagility/

[kewpalace]

Thanks, for the replies.

No local club by me. Maybe next fall when they have the dog event again, I could talk to some clubs there about used equipment …

I am well versed in PVC pipes & cutters - having repaired my swamp cooler for the last 10 years, LOL. I suppose I could rig something up with PVC pipe from pix for some obstacles - jumps & weave poles. A-frames with ply wood and 2x4 (or similar).

What other fun ostacles? would it be too hard to make a tunnel?

[BostonBanker]

I’d think a tunnel would be hard. Little kid tunnels can work, but aren’t very sturdy.

If you also have some sewing skills, you can make a collapsed chute out of an old plastic barrel (clean it really well, put anti-slip strips on the inside, and cut out the ends, then attached the fabric).

I made my own tire jump out of PVC and plastic piping (wrapped in colored tape). You can make contact equipment (the big stuff - A Frame, Dog walk and teeter) with wood, and paint it with lots of grippy sand.

A lot of people make their own equipment; google will give you plenty of plans. Be sure the dog is relatively fit, keep the jumps pretty low (most ACD compete at 16" - 22"), and be sure to keep everything very positive and very safe.

[wendy]

if you’ve never even taken a single agility class, I would suggest you do so before putting your dog on obstacles at home. You can really hurt your dog if you don’t know what you are doing, especially if you don’t spend the necessary time doing the foundation work so your dog can do the obstacles safely- training your dog to jump safely and properly involves doing a lot more than building a jump and urging the dog over it; ditto with the bigger obstacles, particularly the dog walk and A-frame, where work on teaching the dog body awareness and proper contact performance can save your dog from devastating injuries.
Those “Come out and try agility” events are supposed to be encouraging you to sign up for classes, not to go out and race your dog around in your backyard over unsafe obstacles until he injuries himself.
Plus most people get their dogs fit so they can do agility safely, not use agility as a way to exercise the dog? that’s very backwards.

[Anne_FS]

No reason you can’t play in your backyard with some simple obstacles if you learn more first. Depending on your own training experience & ability, of course.

I’m leery of the tunnel for safety reasons: there’s a sad video making the rounds of a wonderful agility dog, a Malinois I think, who was killed in a competition when he slammed into a tunnel strap as he raced through a tunnel.

Safety first, last, and always.

[Coyoteco]

kewpalace, here is a link to some plans. With your experience with animals, I’m sure you’ll do great with this. http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20296555,00.html

There is another place for plans. it appears in the comments section on the this old house link. I’ll see if I can find the link and edit this post to include it. http://www.formufit.com/pets-dog-agility-plans/

One place I looked at talked of doing a tunnel using a plastic 55 gallon drum cut in half for each end and buying parachute cloth for the tunnel. There is a youtube video on how to do that.

Congratulations of the Australian Cattle Dog!

[GraceLikeRain]

I don’t think anyone would advocate for using agility equipment to run a dog into the ground. That being said, I don’t think there is any harm in doing clicker training and integrating a low fence, wrapping around a standard, weaves, etc. In an ideal world everyone would have the time, access, and funds to take a great foundations class. Since that is not the case, the internet is full of phenomenal resources for installing a solid foundation at home.

[Roxyllsk]

I started with a couple of hula hoops - one bigger and one smaller. I taught my boy to go through one (while I was holding it) when I pointed … then slowly raised it off the ground so he was actually jumping thru the hoop. Start with the larger one then work with the smaller one.

He loves playing this game and hula hoops are pretty cheap and easy to find.

[kewpalace]

[QUOTE=Coyoteco;7400265]
kewpalace, here is a link to some plans. With your experience with animals, I’m sure you’ll do great with this. http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20296555,00.html

There is another place for plans. it appears in the comments section on the this old house link. I’ll see if I can find the link and edit this post to include it. http://www.formufit.com/pets-dog-agility-plans/

One place I looked at talked of doing a tunnel using a plastic 55 gallon drum cut in half for each end and buying parachute cloth for the tunnel. There is a youtube video on how to do that.

Congratulations of the Australian Cattle Dog![/QUOTE]Thank Coyoteco, exactly what I was looking for! Yes, I’m really loving my dog … except for last night when he went off his stay off into the darkness before I realized it.

Thanks, Roxyllsk - great idea with the hula hoops! I actually have a few! Have to dig them out to play with.

Yes, I was planning on running my dog into the ground on obstacles at competition level speeds. :lol: Actually the problem will be (which will be good for my dog) is to make him SLOW DOWN to learn to do the obstacles correctly. We are just in it (for the foreseeable future) to have fun and keep his mind active. I’m not using this in place of any other types of exercise we already do or to go do a competition tomorrow. I am planning on working my dog safely, to reassure those who questioned that.

Thanks for all the idea responses.

[BostonBanker]

[QUOTE=Anne FS;7400126]

I’m leery of the tunnel for safety reasons: there’s a sad video making the rounds of a wonderful agility dog, a Malinois I think, who was killed in a competition when he slammed into a tunnel strap as he raced through a tunnel.

Safety first, last, and always.[/QUOTE]

Have they confirmed that at this point? The last I heard, the trainer was being VERY vocal in letting people know that they did not know the cause of death in the dog, and asking people to hold off on blaming the equipment. I haven’t heard anything in a while, so I’m curious if there was an official cause announced.

IF it was the tunnel - it is a seriously freak accident. You think of how many hundreds of thousands of times or millions of dogs have safely performed tunnels, even at extremely high speeds, and when this dog was injured, everyone was baffled, because nobody could even imagine that would happen.

I do worry more about collapsed chutes, contact equipment, and unsafe jumps (bars that don’t fall, metal jump cups), where I’ve actually seen multiple dogs get injured. As you said, safety always has to come first.

[shayaalliard]

[QUOTE=Roxyllsk;7401733]
I started with a couple of hula hoops - one bigger and one smaller. I taught my boy to go through one (while I was holding it) when I pointed … then slowly raised it off the ground so he was actually jumping thru the hoop. Start with the larger one then work with the smaller one.

He loves playing this game and hula hoops are pretty cheap and easy to find.[/QUOTE]

I;ve used hula hoop too, but split a pool noodle and taped onto it for cushioning. Makes a good dog jump and a good horse “mark”.