Homemade Agility Equipment

[MandyPug]

Do you guys have any preferred materials?
Any preferred methods or patterns?

I'm looking at using PVC pipes for the jumps, 1 inch thickness looks to be good enough to be sturdy but not too thick. They don't look too expensive either.

Don't really know what i'm gonna do for weaves but i'm not worried about those too much until we put in more work on them in class, i can set up some in the yard with garden poles until we get going more on them in class.

Tunnel maybe i can use one from toys r us for kids, just to build her confidence on them. She's getting better at tunnel as she goes but I'd like to work on it more.

I don't think I'll worry too much about the walk or teeter or frame, maybe i'll makeshift something to practice contacts on.

They give us some instructions in the homework book, but they're not the easiest instructions to understand. Thanks in advance!

 

[MafiaPrincess]

I made a tire, half a dozen jumps, a scaled down teeter, pause table and bought a tunnel from pacific toys in the US.

I bought 4 2x2 weave bases with poles from a lady getting out of agility.

The only tunnels I could find at toys r us were small in height, and many were half clear.. I sold off my teeter last year, and have a full size plank in my garage to be painted for my new teeter. Sadly now I want a larger yard.

I liked PVC for jumps until I made wooden ones. They were funkier and get a lot of attention.

 

[Beanie]

I actually recommend 3/4" for the jumps. I used 1" for the stand for my tire jump, and 1" for the wings of my wing jump, but my standards and my jump bars are 3/4". A lot of people seem to like 3/4" for their jump bars especially because it's not too small from a visual standpoint but it's just a bit lighter than the 1", so if a dog DOES knock it, it won't sting as bad.

If you can find a four-way tee (which you probably can't... I even went to a plumber supply and they told me it would be a special order) that makes building jumps a LOT easier. You use a four-way tee and basically you have your standard going up, two legs out to the side, and then a pole across the bottom that connects your two standards to each other.
You can find them online though the last time I was going to order some, they were out of stock. Guess a lot of people are building their jumps right about now. => Otherwise you have to figure out a way to make your jump standards sturdy. There are LOTS of different ways to make them... right now mine are made with a regular tee, then a tee on the ends of the legs and a couple inches of pipe forming legs for THOSE tee's that steadies it in the grass. Auggie's breeder has lots of jumps and I noticed one had a different way of making them, but I can't remember now what it looked like. You could also special order a FIVE-way tee and that will give you four legs and an upright standard, but I'm not a huge fan of those TBH...

I'd just google for agility jumps and look at pictures, you'll be able to figure out how most of them are made just by looking. You'll probably find one way you really prefer and just stick with that. For your jump cups, you can either order them online, order something like this: 3/4" Sch 40 PVC Snap Slip Tee 463-007 and cut it in half, or makeshift your own snap slip tee out of a regular tee (which is what I did) and then cut THAT in half. Snap it to your pole then rest your jump bar in the now-cut-in-half tee and voila! Jump cups! On the way cheap!

My jump bars are 4' long; a lot of people prefer them to be 5'. IMO it's just up to you. Keep in mind PVC pipe usually comes in either 5' or 10' pieces so if you want them to be 5' it will take you one piece just to make two jump bars, and you haven't even built your standards yet. PVC really is pretty much dirt cheap so it's not a huge deal.


My stick-in-the-ground weave poles were made with 1" pipe. Put a cap on one end. Then take another cap and drill a hole in the middle. We used I think five inch long screws, secured with a nut and a bolt to the cap, then pop that to the other end of the weave pole. Repeat 11 times and you have a set of 12 stick-in-the-ground poles, LOL.



And then you'll need to order yourself one of these. ;>
Clean Run: Forget Diamonds... Womens T-shirt?Violet

 

[CaliTerp07]

There is a FANTASTIC yahoo group devoted to making your own agility equipment.

agility-equipment : This list is for the exchange of ideas regarding construction of dog agility equipment

Definitely recommend joining and looking through all the plans and ideas they have on their list serve.