I might just have to build a few of these for our back yard, I want to start working with him on some agility at home.

I love the hound by the way....those ears!!!

Your tire jump looks great. However, you may want to use some bungee cord type stuff to attach the sides of the tire, in case your dog hits the tire, and allow room for the tire to move around some (it will allow more flexibility in the tire, and won't cause the whole jump to crash over).

On the DW, you need to fix the end boards so they don't jut up over the top board at the ends. They could easily trip your dog. (It doesn't look like the boards are 12" wide...it doesn't look that sturdy at all. Be careful with this piece of equipment. Dogs fall off of regulation DWs all the time...and this one doesn't look regulation<g>.)

leih

Thanks Jennifer!

I love this stuff. It's a great mental/physical exercise for them, and relatively easy to move around.

Leigh, the tire jump does have bungee cords on each side.

On the DW the middle plank is about 4 inches wide. It's definately not regulation and I have no clue what the regulations are. It wasn't built for speed, and I don't try to get either dog to fly across. Actually the way I work them on it is to get them to stop at some point on it and do OB exercies. Although looks are deceiving on this one its extremely sturdy. Before either dog was allowed on it I walked up, across, down, and jumped on it. And I outweigh both of my dogs by at least 20lbs.

Hi,

Well, four inches is way too narrow for a DW! Cats could do fine with it, given their narrow rib cages, but not dogs. It's very dangerous to use that.

I probably did a poor job of describing what I meant about your tire jump<g>. I did see there were ties at the sides, but they hold the tire in place, as opposed to being very loose and letting it move within the frame.

This will be difficult to describe, but my tire jump, which is made from very similar materials to yours, has anchor points on the PVC uprights, both above and below the tire, and then there is a bungee-type cord that threads from those anchor points thru a dealie on the tire. It's kind of like a bungee cord triangle from the upper PVC anchor, thru the tire clasp, then thru the bottom PVC anchor.

The benefit to this is that when your dog accidently hits the jump wrong and slams into the tire instead of thru it (and trust me, that will happen<g>, there is a lot of give in the tire and much less chance that the dog will pull the whole jump on top of him or herself.

I think it's wonderful that you are looking to enrich your dog's life with these kinds of activities. I don't mean to sound critical here, but the first rule in everything related to agility is safety. If your equipment isn't safe, you are just asking for injuries, and you will get them.

leih

Leigh,

I don't know what I was thinking when I said the DW was 4". If it was there is no way my GSD could lay down on top of it.



The board across the top of it is about 10.5" wide. I don't know where I came up with 4" at, and I'm sure you about freaked when you read it. Oops. Sorry for the miscommunication!

I'm trying to figure out how to make my own chute

Dennis,

One of the plans I saw had a barrel cut in half, and then fabric of some sort stabled around the edges of it. I'm not for sure where I saw that plan at, but I'll look around and see if I can find it later.