# Backyard agility training?



## Sienna's Mom (Oct 23, 2007)

Sienna is a very silly active almost two year old. She LOVES to run around the backyard and zig zag through the small trees we have about.

I got a Fosters and Smith catalog a while ago that had a beginners agility set advertised at a really low cost. I thought it would be something fun for her to do, not to mention my son to train her.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=15286

Can we do this on our own? A while back I looked into agility classes, but many are a bit of a drive... Seems we have such little time to get everything done as it is, I thought it might be nice to try this? It being in our backyard I would have no excuse LOL.

We do have to level out our yard a bit unfortunately, severe mole tunnel damage from before we bought the house... it's gotten worse since we've owned it, but in this economy it's been hard to justify the expense when we might have something go wrong with the house itself and not have the money. We have a small house, but an almost 3,000 sq foot backyard.


----------



## moverking (Feb 26, 2007)

I bought the same one from Care-a-Lot Pet supply for about $45.00. The tunnel is great, but the poles are a bit flimsy, both weave and jump. All in all, it's a great way to get started, and if you two fall in love with it, you could make your own stronger pole sets, there's lots of plans available on the 'net.
Go for it and have fun! One of my pups really enjoys it, the other ummm, not so much:


----------



## Bender (Dec 30, 2008)

For weave poles I've used electric fence posts that they sell for livestock - they're not electrified but sturdy, stick into the ground and stand up to being knocked by a dog/kid. You could also do the same for jumps, same idea. Tunnels you can pick up at Ikea. It would cost the same or less than what that kit has, but stand up to wear and tear a lot better (I had the poles for years, trained several dogs on them including border collies who went on to break poles in trials).

Lana


----------



## jwemt81 (Aug 20, 2008)

We were thinking about getting some agility equipment to put in our backyard for Tucker this summer. We saw a lot of great equipment on eBay and we're seriously considering doing it. I think it would be a lot of fun to be able to practice agility in our own yard.


----------



## Augie's Mom (Sep 28, 2007)

I looked at the Foster and Smith type agility set and it just looked too flimsy.

A bit pricier but so much nicer is the "Agility in a Bag" from Affordable agility. 
http://www.affordableagility.com/agilityinbag.htm 

I've had my "agility in a bag" set for a year and its still like new. I take the bar jump with me to obedience trials to practice jumping before we go in the ring.


----------



## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

My only concern with "inexpensive" and agility equipment on ebay is strength. Jumps, tunnels, weaves, etc are all fine. However a teeter or any obstacle that bears the dogs weight, with a PVC base can not hold a dog the size of a golden retriever and you risk injuring your dog. They say they have an 85lb test, but I would NOT trust that. Just this past weekend someone was telling me they used one with there dog (smaller breed) and it collapsed and the dog is TERRIFIED of the contacts now. Not worth the trouble.


----------



## Sienna's Mom (Oct 23, 2007)

Maxs Mom said:


> My only concern with "inexpensive" and agility equipment on ebay is strength. Jumps, tunnels, weaves, etc are all fine. However a teeter or any obstacle that bears the dogs weight, with a PVC base can not hold a dog the size of a golden retriever and you risk injuring your dog. They say they have an 85lb test, but I would NOT trust that. Just this past weekend someone was telling me they used one with there dog (smaller breed) and it collapsed and the dog is TERRIFIED of the contacts now. Not worth the trouble.


Yes, I totally agree with you- I would have the same concern, which is precisely why I posted this. At this point in time I can only do baby steps in checking this out, especially $$. I like the IKEA tunnels idea, my son has a tunnel from when he was little, but it might be too small for Sienna.... for the poles: could we just pound flexible PVC piping into the ground? I'm not sure how far apart to put them. I would be nervous about the jumping anyway.

Any books or videos out there?


----------



## NancyJ (Dec 18, 2008)

That sounds like a blast. The trainer I'm using is also going to help us with agility training, so I was thinking about having to buy stuff for our yard too.


----------



## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

You have gotten some great ideas from those who have already responded. I think it is great to do anything with your dog. Two suggestions I would make is first if you are doing this on your own I would definetely get a book or two before starting. It might help preventing bad habits from starting. But most of all I would not do anything till you can get the damage in the yard fixed. You, your son and your dog are all at risk of serious injury if you should step in one of the mole holes/tunnels.


----------



## Sienna's Mom (Oct 23, 2007)

AmbikaGR said:


> You have gotten some great ideas from those who have already responded. I think it is great to do anything with your dog. Two suggestions I would make is first if you are doing this on your own I would definetely get a book or two before starting. It might help preventing bad habits from starting. But most of all I would not do anything till you can get the damage in the yard fixed. You, your son and your dog are all at risk of serious injury if you should step in one of the mole holes/tunnels.


You are right:
#1 I have already gone through the library and got a bunch of books on hold LOL and
#2 This is at the top of my mind and has been for a while-especially with Sienna loving running around full tilt. It is very frustrating that it costs so much to fix- even to get dirt and do it on my own. I'm going to work very hard on a solution. What it is is the ground has settled into the twenty million mole freeways/tunnels that exist underneath making above uneven, but hard packed with existing grass. I will have to try it in small sections.

Thanks for all your responses everyone! I'm getting excited, my son should love it too.


----------



## katieanddusty (Feb 9, 2006)

Yeah, I would just make stuff yourself rather than pay for the cheap set (isn't that the one that also comes with a start line, a stopwatch, and a fake ribbon?). You can make weave poles with PVC in the ground, they get annoying once the dog knows how to weave and you have to straighten them every time, but they get the job done. And you can figure out some jumps yourself too. I still use one of the "jumps" that I started out with 8-ish years ago, which is a piece of PVC stuck between the seats of two chairs  As long as the bar can fall down and isn't so heavy that it'll hurt the dog if she hits it. The only thing you can't make by yourself is the tunnel. Mine is from affordableagility.com but I had a decent one from Ebay until the puppy came along and that was the end of the tunnel (as well as the chute and the PVC-base weave poles ...)

And I agree with whoever said not to buy anything weight-bearing from Ebay. If you're mostly just wanting an outlet for her energy, to have fun running around, etc then you probably won't want them anyways (it's not too fun doing the initial training to get her to do them safely).


----------



## dannyra (Aug 5, 2008)

I was wondering what the diameter should be for the tunnels and chutes? I was thinking 24" would probably be about right for goldens, but I have no experience in this at all. 

4-H starts their free dog training classes next week and I'm taking Kylee. After the standard class they do an agility class. When I took Baylee they had an A frame, tire jump, and a couple other jumps. They may have had a teeter too. Kind of thinking about getting something and donating since the classes are free.


----------



## katieanddusty (Feb 9, 2006)

Competition tunnels are always 24". I think I had a 22" one for a while which was okay, but it runs the risk of teaching the dog to do tunnels slowly or not like tunnels if he has to duck and crawl through the tunnel.

Have fun!


----------



## MurphyTeller (Sep 28, 2008)

Sienna's Mom said:


> Yes, I totally agree with you- I would have the same concern, which is precisely why I posted this. At this point in time I can only do baby steps in checking this out, especially $$. I like the IKEA tunnels idea, my son has a tunnel from when he was little, but it might be too small for Sienna.... for the poles: could we just pound flexible PVC piping into the ground? I'm not sure how far apart to put them. I would be nervous about the jumping anyway.
> 
> Any books or videos out there?


There's a great feature in clean run (www.cleanrun.com) called backyard dogs. Designed for those of us without a manicured agility field and limited amount of equipment. I know you said that there are classes but they are a drive - the same is true for a lot of us - if not the classes, but the practices and trials - but so much of agility is about you, your body and your handling techniques. Perhaps you could drive for a private lesson once a month or so and then work on homework. A good agility instructor can give you homework to work on between lessons.

My problem with the flimsy "intro" equipment is the potential to teach a dog bad habits. If you have a dog that is trained on fence posts for weaves (and I'm not picking on anyone) and they are the type to get physical with the weaves there's a huge potential for injury when they hit weaves that don't move the same way. I don't think this is an issue for little dogs - a friend with his yorkie uses the fence posts - he did mention recently that he has to handle them with gloves because they flake fiberglass shards after weathering a season in the sun and then cold. I remember this from my horse days too - getting a fiberglass splinter and then having to cut it out with a razor blade (OK my dad cut it out for me because I was a wimp). 

One of my dogs isn't physical with the poles - the other one needs to have his poles staked down. I went for competition quality weaves and haven't regretted it. You can make your own out of PVC which could be fine if you build them properly. Watch for sales and check out affordable agility (www.affordableagility.com). Weave poles should be 20" apart - but I'll stress that weave entrys are specific they enter the poles the same regardless of direction - you want to teach these correctly from the start - it's more than just macaronis 

If you know of someone in the HVAC industry the same people who make agility tunnels make flexible venting - same material - different distances between the ribs - and some can be quite long - I inherited a 30' tunnel that way and it cost me a $50 gift card (gift to my friend for saving it for me). I'll likely cut it into two tunnels and regift one of the halves - it's too long for my needs.

I went in with some friends and bought a case of the 5-way PVC connectors - that's four feet and an upright. Made our own jumps - I ended up buying the jump cup strips from clean run so I had flexibility with jump heights - you can also make your own cups or buy single jump cups....

Erica


----------



## Rhapsody in Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

Our agility instructor sold three jumps to us. She was fund raising for the Border Collie Rescue.

I would suggest taking a couple of agility classes before working with your dog on your own. You really need an instructor to observe your handling. You don't want to start bad habits or put your dog at risk of getting injured. You also don't want to create issues for your dog. They go through different fear periods. My Marty is just not aware of his back-end and we really needed help with that. The instructor can watch and work through these problems with you. 

If you do practice outdoors make sure you have the right shoes. I stumbled in the grass and knocked my knee against a teeter. I was black and blue all the way up my leg.


----------



## Bender (Dec 30, 2008)

Picking on me huh? 

The fence posts aren't the best, but in a pinch they do the trick. Depends on the dog of course, and we did have the odd issue with different sets of weaves when we traveled, however even the next dog who was trained on poles with a base had the odd snag as well. The dog trained on the fence posts had great weaves and apart from having to adjust himself when he ran on a different set (one in the states had very narrow base supports and rocked quite a bit), which usually only took one run to do he was fine. 

Lana


----------



## katieanddusty (Feb 9, 2006)

A lot of people who use stick-in-the-ground weave poles will take shorter pieces of rebar (like two feet long or so, I guess), pound those really deep into the ground, and then slide the PVC over them. That holds them more solid and they don't fall over as much. It's not really a problem that they don't have a base because AKC competition poles now have good bases that don't interfere with the dog, but there might be some problems with footwork and all if the dog is used to poles that just fall over.


----------



## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

I had the Kids R Us tunnels to use for a while. They are much smaller that "regulation" but I figured then when my dog saw the opening of the real tunnel she would think "that looks EASY!". I think they are 20" (the kids toy tunnels) my lab is over 25" according to the AKC and she made it through every time. 

There are so many things you can do with out spending too much money, however (again this is my opinion only) if you have never taken agility lessons, and are just wanting to play don't get weave poles of any kind. There is a specific way to train and I think it is better to have instruction at least before you do any weaving in your back yard. IF you find you really like this, which you may, and you go to take lessons re training weaves correctly could be a nightmare. Once you have a lesson and you know what to do and how to do it correctly, stab in the ground weaves for practice will certainly work. I will admit that was the first piece of agility equipment I wanted to buy. I got tired of my stab in the grounds really fast, I bought channel weaves, well worth the money I spent.


----------



## Sienna's Mom (Oct 23, 2007)

Thanks so much for all your replies. You all hit the nail on the head for all the things that were going on in my head of whether to try this or not. I definitely do not want to do something wrong and hurt Sienna, so I need to do further study and yes, hopefully take one class or talk to someone so if I do, I set it up right. I do have a tunnel from my sons kid tent... maybe I'll see what Sienna does with it. One thing I do know is she seems to love enclosed cozy areas. Loves being under tables and under beds.


----------



## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Sienna's Mom said:


> One thing I do know is she seems to love enclosed cozy areas. Loves being under tables and under beds.


I had to laugh as I read this! We got a nice coffee table from my in-laws it is literally a tree. It has kind of roots/branches as legs. Teddi LOVES to go under there with ALL her toys. We say she hangs out "in the woods". When we pick up the house and see all toys under there it is amazing! 

Teddi used to under the bed but she grew too big, got stuck and that was the last time she tried that. LOL


----------



## Sienna's Mom (Oct 23, 2007)

Would an IKEA tunnel be too small? I believe they are 18 inches. I'm not sure how tall Sienna is, but she is about 78 pounds... average height. Seems a bit too small if regulation size is 24".


----------

