# weave poles



## Jessie'sGirl (Aug 30, 2010)

I was in the gardening section of my local Canadian Tire today and found poles meant to hold up plants that look like they would be great weave poles. They are made of plastic and could be easily stuck in the ground. I bought the 4' ones , $2.50 each. Gonna try them out today.


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## AmberSunrise (Apr 1, 2009)

Sounds great  Let us know how they work?


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Stab in the ground weaves are a great place to start. The poles you bought... don't have places to slide some plastic fencing through do they? Those I worry about pulling hair as the dogs weave. DH made me some at first we used them. However....in my opinion... if you invest in ANY agility equipment get a good set of weave poles. 

Stab in the grounds have to be measured out when set up (a pain) and they move around as the dogs weave. Not really a problem but you are constantly adjusting poles which gets old after a while. I have my stabs still so I set up my good ones and the do other exercises with the stabs. I set a bunch of 2-3 poles for the young'uns to teach entries. 

They are a great place to start.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

Little tip... 

If you go to Home Depot, you should be able to purchase 6 PVC pipes of a desired height and width, have a Home Depot guy cut a couple other pipes to the lengths you need between the poles as well as longer strips for stabilizers at each end and the middle. Then you pick out PVC joints to go with the specific width you pipe you are using. 

The whole thing will cost you less than $30 and you will have something you can take apart and reshape into bar jumps or if you simply want to store it. 

^ I did the above when I briefly did agility (for fun) with my Danny. It worked out great because sometimes I trained indoors and the stick in the ground method wouldn't have worked.


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## Jessie'sGirl (Aug 30, 2010)

Thanks for the tips. Max's Mom, no they don't have anything sticking out, smooth all the way down. Megora, i did read about making weave poles and other equipment in an agility book. still on DH's to do list. i didn't know they would cut them for me though. We have a Home Depot nearby.The upside to this is they will do until I get something better and when I'm done with them i can somehow use them in the garden. Jess completed an intro course in agility this winter. Weaving is his weakest thing. Intermediate starts tomorrow!


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## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Weaves are the HARDEST part of agility. It is not a natural skill at all. Having these will help you to work on the skills. 

I was just talking with a dog friend about weaves. We had our old 20" weave base in our basement for the winter training our young lab. We have 24" base too, (AKC now has 24" weaves) but those are WAY too long even at a six pole section for inside our house. Weaves are one of the more inexpensive official pieces of equipment, and because they are the hardest skill, I saw it as a worth while investment once 'we' committed to the sport. 

DH has made us lots of pvc jumps with supplies from Home Depot. The four way pieces he got from a green house supplier online. He made us a teeter and that is our only contact piece. We have a board strapped to crates (so it wiggles) for our 'dog walk'. I have never had a dog yet have an issue with the dog walk or A frame so we just do those in class. We can practice the contact behavior with our teeter. There is a lot you can do easily and cheaply. Then there are the 'agility kits' (not so cheap) in the dog catalogs. LOL


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## Stretchdrive (Mar 12, 2011)

I have the stabbers also, the only problem is if you have a dog that is a hard hitter where weaves are concerned they break instead of bend or pop off.


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## RedDogs (Jan 30, 2010)

If you're just playing around, this can be a great thing to use!

However.... if you want to really pursue agility or if your dog is forceful, they can learn VERY bad/dangerous habits, or get hurt as the poles move. We started with those but quickly outgrew them. 

I always wanted to make a set out of the stick-in-the-ground candycane christmas decorations! It'd at least be great for pictures!


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## Jessie'sGirl (Aug 30, 2010)

Our yard is very small, but there is a huge city park less than 100' away, so yesterday we set off to the park, my little poles wrapped in elastics and me using them as a kind of walking stick, mini tape measure in my pocket....Well, the ground has not thawed as much as i had hoped, so they wouldn't even go an inch in the ground. Putting them in and measuring each one turned out to be a pain as they were wavering from not being in far enough. Did get them up and had a little fun. They may ultimately end up as garden poles! Our basement is all "finished" living space, so not much room for agility equipment there, but my Dad (who is 89) has a lot of unused space in his basement so I'm gonna ask him if I can set up stuff there. He's only a 5 min drive away. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.


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## Jige (Mar 17, 2011)

I bought a set this past year. It is 12 poles but I can break it down and set up just six or three of them for that matter. I brought them up n the deck so I could bring them in this winter to use them and wouldnt you know we got so much snow they were buried until last week. I had the stick in the ground ones to begin with i went out to the woods and got some small saplings and we used those. I wanted to know if if I really wanted to do agility before I spent too much money.


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## Bender (Dec 30, 2008)

If you have a farm supply store near you, you can get 'electric fence posts' which stick in the ground well, flex and don't break. Only problem is they shed fiberglass for the first bit so you have to use gloves. But it doesn't hurt to work with different types of weaves and bases and so on so the dogs get used to change. We went to the states for a trial and my guy hit the poles hard, as usual, and they wobbled so much he came out of them. Tried again, same thing, he came out and gave them a dirty look, barked at them and then slowed himself down a bit so that he could weave. 

I credit using lots of different equipment so he wasn't phased by the moving poles...


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