# DIY agility equipment



## gsdhunter (Nov 10, 2013)

Does anyone make their own agility equipment? 

We just bought a house on a large property, so we will actually have a yard now! I want to be able to practice agility with my boy as I don't really have the time or money to take him to classes right now.

Any ideas? 

I Don't really need to make jumps, bc I have horse jumps and he jumps those. Although I might just sacrifice one of my poles so the jumps aren't so wide. (He probably doesn't need jumps that are 10-12 feet wide haha)


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

I made a ton of jumps this year, but that's pretty much it. I would definitely recommend making a couple out of PVC if you only have horse jumps available - they are just so light and easy to move around, and you can make nice tight courses more fitting to a dog's stride length. They're really cheap to make.

I'd like to make some sort of contact obstacle next year. Watson needs practice on contact obstacles to boost his confidence, so they wouldn't need to be full size or anything.


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## MrsBoats (May 20, 2010)

I have made my own jumps and weave poles out of PVC...anything else I have I bought new or used. 

Elrowhen...which contact equipment are you thinking about making? You might want to think about making them full sized...because of striding and muscle memory. I once voiced to an agility trainer that I thought about making a smaller dog walk for the yard. 6' boards instead of 8'. She strongly suggested that I not do that because of striding on the dog walk. I didn't get it at the time because I was still really new to agility. Now that I have been in the sport a while, I get it. If you practice a great deal of time on equipment that isn't regulation, your dog will adapt to that striding...3 strides up, 3 strides across, 3 strides down. Then you get on regulation stuff at a trial...5 strides, 5 strides, 5 strides? If you have running contacts which is all based on getting that striding right, you're going to be screwed. It's like weave poles, if you don't make the span between them 24" in order to save space, your dog's rhythm and muscle memory for those poles is going to be all jacked up when they see regulation equipment. That's the biggest thing I can recommend is don't mess with the size of equipment for the sake of saving space. It could bite you in the rear when you start to show.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

I don't know. Honestly, I really just want a wobble board to start and then a small sized teeter since movement is his main issue. I'm much more concerned with confidence building for now, rather than striding and including it into any sized course. If he is comfortable with a mini-teeter, our odds of being able to participate in a class on a full sized teeter are much higher. My current property also isn't fenced (beyond a small temporarily fenced in area) so I can't even use full sized equipment. If we move next year that might change though and I might be more interested in something full sized.


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## gsdhunter (Nov 10, 2013)

Hmmm regulation stuff is probably a great idea if we ever want to go to a competition...

He hadn't actually learned weave poles, but I will YouTube how to teach them.

Anyone ever made a teeter totter?


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## MrsBoats (May 20, 2010)

Have you ever done agility before with a dog??


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## gsdhunter (Nov 10, 2013)

Yes,I have done some agility with this dog, we just moved and are over an hour from the place that we took classes at. I have never taught weave poles though.


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## Kyllobernese (Feb 5, 2008)

My sister and I built all our own Agility equipment when we first started except for the dog walk which we had given to us. Our equipment was built for our little dogs and it never seemed to bother them when we trialed over regulation size equipment. We did have to purchase some tunnels as they are hard to built on your own. We got the tunnels and chute from NTI Global and they were reasonable and shipped free of charge to us even though we are in Canada. There are some good websites that explain how to build your own equipment.

Eventually we managed to buy other equipment from someone who was not doing Agility any more so have a pretty good set-up now at a reasonable price. We have proper weave poles now but started out with just those plastic poles you use on an electric fence that stick into the ground.


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## gsdhunter (Nov 10, 2013)

I was just looking around eBay and it seems that you can find tunnels pretty cheap. I also saw poles for weave poles that you could just stab in the ground and was wondering if that would be a bigger hassle than the ones that all connect together?


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## MrsBoats (May 20, 2010)

It would depend on your dog....stick in the ground poles would be a complete joke for my boys. Both of my rotties have shattered pvc weave poles and sheared them off at the base in agility shows. Stick in the ground ones would not stay stuck in the ground here. LOL


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## gsdhunter (Nov 10, 2013)

Dip you use the pvc with a base or something else?


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## kadylady (Sep 23, 2010)

I used stick in the ground when I was first teaching the weaves to Zoey. They worked for us. But after a few uses the stack started to bend and now when I set them up they lean all different directions. I have a set of 6 pvc base ones I got for in the house last winter to continue working. Now that we are at 12 in trials though I usually only practice on the competition set of 12 at my club. 

I am teaching an "agility for fun" class which is purely for people with no competition aspirations, just that want to have fun with their dog and build confidence and keep taking classes. We purchased some "mini" equipment from ebay due to size restrictions in the building, and it is working well for our purposes. But I don't let Zoey on that equipment, because like MrsBoats stated, it could really mess up the drive and striding that I am working on with full sized equipment. If you aren't considering competition then the size of the equipment may not be as important.


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