Hooked on Agility? . . . Agility equipment for home use. Weaves.

... by Averill Ring

If your goal is to be successful in agility competition, it's a good idea to have the ability to train at home. Once a week is definitely not enough for your dog to become proficient in weaves, for example - at least not within a reasonable length of time (reasonable for most people, that is).

I believe that all serious agility addicts need the following equipment, at a minimum:

Absolute:
Set of 12 weave poles
6 bar jumps

Very nice to have:
more bar jumps
15-foot tunnel
one contact obstacle, probably the teeter

and then anything goes after that.

So your investment doesn't have to be insane, and if you stick with the "absolute" and "very nice" categories you won't have to move a lot of heavy stuff every week to mow.

You'll also be able to take your equipment "on the road" with you if it consists only of jumps and weaves. It's nice to be able to drive to a local park or school and practice in a new and different place, so your dog can learn to generalize playing agility to different locations.

HOW TO GET YOUR OWN EQUIPMENT

Your options, of course, are to (1) make your own or (2) buy it somewhere. Some obstacles (especially jumps) are pretty simple to make, and kind of fun. On the other end of the spectrum, you probably cannot make your own tunnel, and the contact equipment can be pretty involved. The best of it is made with welded aluminum and synthetic planks (light-weight, durable, low maintenance). You certainly can make backyard equipment using painted planks on sawhorses; just take extreme care to make it solid enough to hold your dog when he's running on it, and using treated lumber will save you much heartache and maintenance.

Weave poles

Cheap and easy approaches:

• "Step-on" plastic fence posts from some co-ops and Tractor Supply Company, possibly Home Depot. These have a 4-6"-long spike at the bottom that can be stuck into the ground. The plastic post works nicely as a weave pole (keeping the extrusions pointed outward, of course).
• 18" Rebar stuck into the ground about 6" with PVC pipe slipped over top of it.

The above two types of "stick-in-the-ground" weave poles can be used as straight-up poles, angled like "Weave-A-Matics" (WAMs) or placed in a channel fashion:

(dog runs between them and you can gradually narrow the channel between the rows of poles)

The spacing between weave poles is ideally 21-22". You can use a piece of wood trim/molding with lines marked every 22" to help keep the poles straight and properly spaced. For this guide, 8' should be long enough; you just keep sliding it along as you insert the poles into the ground.

The disadvantage of these types of poles is the inability to use them at some times of the year (ground frozen in winter, concrete-dry in summer), and with hard-driving dogs you have to reset them frequently. But they are cheap and do work nicely when the ground cooperates.

You can purchase weave poles from various sources:

Recommended - Neil Leipham (rotdogs@aol.com). He lives near Front Royal and frequently brings his equipment here to Mountain View for customers to pick up. He makes all three types of poles - WAMs, channel and straight-up poles. I recommend that you purchase either WAMs or channel weaves, since they can be made to be straight; you should always have available a means to allow your dog to succeed in the poles, even after he's an experienced weaver. Being able to open the angle of the WAMs or the channel a little should always be an option.

Other manufacturers:
MAD Agility Equipment http://www.madagility.com/
In Pennsylvania but they frequently provide equipment for local trials, so you can order up front and pick up at a trial (saves on shipping!). I believe they also sell their rented equipment at the end of a trial for a slight discount. Not sure if they make all three types of poles mentioned above. I know they sell straight-up pole sets and sets of two poles.

MAX 200 http://www.max200.com/storefront/default.asp
They also rent equipment for local trials and sell their stuff there. In addition to the above types of (expensive) weave sets, they sell stick-in-the-ground poles that are more like real weave poles than the fence posts mentioned above - and you can also purchase a weave pole base measurer from them.

Affordable Agility http://www.affordableagility.com/WEAVES.htm
Sell PVC weave sets that work great for small dogs or dogs that don't push the poles too hard. They also carry straight-up poles with metal bases AND PVC stick-in-the-ground poles (left).

Or check out the resources here: http://www.parhelion.us/agility_equipment_links.htm#Ready%20Made%20Equipment%20For%20Sale
(a great source for equipment links)

COMING SOON - JUMPS

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