Weekend Project: Organizing Agility Equipment

Over the years, our agility equipment has slowly taken over our backyard.  With the recent addition of our $40 jumps, we had to do something to get everything out of the grass.  The pieces of equipment that posed the biggest problems were the weave poles, the tunnel, and the two new jumps.

 We needed to keep them somewhere dry, and preferably off the ground, to prevent mold and spiders from living in them. The happiest option would have been getting a special shed just for agility equipment and dog related training tools, but that was also the most expensive option, and we had a limited budget.

After walking around the yard, we decided that the best spot was the wall next to the back door.  This wall is under the porch overhang, so it provides protection from the elements, and is in a convenient location for us to be able to access our agility equipment.

So, with a quick trip to the hardware store, our dream came to life.   Here is what we did, and how we did it.

Materials:

• A screw gun, with a drill bit and a Phillips head screw driver bit
• screws
• a level
• utility brackets, these came with screws
• bicycle hanging brackets, these ones have foam padding

Total Project Cost: $20 (we already had the screw gun, screws, and level)

We decided to hang the tunnel first.  To mark where to hang it so that we could easily reach it, we slipped the bicycle hanging brackets into the tunnel and spaced them so that the tunnel sat snugly in them.  Then, Olivia heaved the tunnel up and held it in place, while I quickly marked the holes for the screws with a pencil.

The next step was to drill the pilot holes into the wall at each pencil dot.  Once that was completed, Olivia held each bicycle bracket in place while I put the screws in the wall.  Once the first screw is in place, the bracket can be scooched back and forth until it is level. Don't worry if they aren't 100% level, remember: you're hanging agility equipment, not artwork.

 

Now that we had the tunnel happily in place, we moved on to hanging our new jumps.  We hung these much the same way as the tunnel, except that instead of needing one person to hold the jumps while the other marked the wall, we each took one bracket.  With one jump across the brackets, we held them against the wall and put a level on the jump to make sure it was hanging flat.  Then we each marked the spots for the holes and drilled.  We then screwed the brackets into place and hung our jumps.

 

The last problem we had was how to secure the weave poles.  We wanted to be able to leave the stick-in-the-ground end (if you don't know what I'm talking about go here) on the poles, but scratch up the porch. And, of course, we wanted them to fit prettily with our newly organized tunnel and jumps.

So, we hunted around until we found this! It was originally intended to be an umbrella stand...

When we bought it, it was a mottled red-black, but we didn't like it, so we spray painted it robin's egg blue. Now we have a nice, neat back porch and our agility equipment can stay safe when it rains!

-- Emma & Olivia

Weekend Project: Cheap & Easy Agility Jumps

A while ago, Emma and I decided to build some practice agility jumps to use for backyard practice.  Since this project was successful we decided to share it with you.  Here's how we made two jumps for about $40.

We went to the home improvement store and bought 3 1" PVC poles, 2 3/4" PVC poles, 12 1" pole caps, and 4 1" tees for about $20 (all our PVC is Schedule 40, if you don't want to have the bar codes and item numbers on the pipe, go for furniture-grade PVC. However, this tends to be a more expensive option).  The other $20 we spent on 4 4-way tees that we had to special order from Clean Run.

Whenever we being a building project, we make a checklist of all the parts needed, and work our way down the list checking off items as we go before assembling the obstacle. Here is what we already had:

• PVC cutters
• hacksaw
• tape measure
• black marker
• clamps
• cutting board (not the kind you use in a kitchen)
• vinyl electrical tape, optional

Here is what we needed:

• 2 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 48 inches
• 4 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 36 inches
• 12 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 12 inches
• 4 1-inch  PVC 4-way tees (we ordered ours from Clean Run)
• 4 1-inch PVC tees (these are the normal ones from the hardware store)
• 12 1-inch PVC caps, we like the ones with the rounded look, but you can get the flat ones, if you want
• 2 poles of 3/4-inch PVC measuring 48 inches

Note: you can use PVC glue to adhere all the pieces together. We chose not to, because we wanted our jumps to be collapse-able for easy transportation and storage purposes.  If you want water tight jumps use a PVC primer and glue on all the joints.

Now that we had the list, we could buy our products. We found two 10-foot lengths of 1 inch PVC and one 10-foot length of 3/4-inch PVC to be sufficient for this project, along with all of the fittings we needed, of course.  

So, we cut all of the pieces down to size. It is very important to note that you should measure and cut each piece individually as you go, because you can lose a little bit of pipe when you cut. Next, we separated the two jumps into their components and began putting them together. 

Once the jumps were assembled, we set about making jump cups. A simple solution would have been to buy a set of jump cup strips from Clean Run, but a cheaper solution was to make our own! Since all of our dogs jump 16" or less (for now, at least. Tucker will jump 20", but he is still building up muscle), we only made two sets of cups for each of the jumps. To do this, we clamped a regular PVC tee to a 2x4 board that we straddled between some cinder blocks. Then we went to town with the hacksaw to cut the tee in half and provide us with two cups. To make the cups snap on and off the jumps, we also cut just less than half of the back off, creating a clip-like portion on the tee. pic of cups - on right side, make this section wrap We repeated this process three more times, and, voila!, we had jump cups!

The last step was to align the jump cups and set the bars in between them and admire our new practice jumps! We also decided to stripe our jumps with electrical tape so that they matched our weave poles.

To download and print complete, detailed instructions with more pictures, visit: http://howtomake.allearsagility.com/practicejumps.pdf

HAPPY JUMPING!

-- Emma & Olivia