Over my years of training in agility, I have made (or attempted to make!) much of my own equipment to practice on at home. The idea being that it would be cheaper, be made just how I wanted it and mostly... yeah, cheaper
Despite me creating things 'on the fly' most of my gear has stood the test of time, still in use now after it was made several years back for Porter. Some of the things I have made in the past are:
A broad jump - after looking at the cost of wood I decided free would be better (I had minimal income at this stage) and scored myself an old wooden pallet. I then set about to saw through all the nails holding the thing together, and after a bit of sweat had a pile of wooden boards. Because the wood was rough and splintery, I then sanded it down (electric sander, not by hand thank God) then used the wood and some other odd bits of scrap wood I had to create two broad jumps. A slap of paint and they looked bloody good. Because the wood was not of the greatest quality, some of it has warped and the ends that were nailed together fell off, but most of it is still perfectly usable!
A tyre - who wants to pay for a real tyre? I used an old plastic rubbish bin lid, sawed right around the rim and then wrapped the rim in masking tape and painted it white. Initially, I just nailed it to a single pole as a lollipop tyre, however it wasn't very stable so I then when and bought (yes, I did actually pay for SOMETHING *gasp*) some long, thick, square garden stakes (I think that's what they were - I don't rightly remember, but I know they were cheap!) built a frame around the 'tyre' and attached feet then drilled holes so the feet could be pegged down. I haven't used it for years and not sure if I still would - it is quite solid and I would worry about the dogs catching themselves on it, plus it is probably smaller than a regulation hoop, not good for my large dogs.
Jumps - To start with, I found some old metal spikes in the shed (I imagine they were actually meant to be used for welding). I sawed them into pieces and estimated which drill bit matched the diameter, then used more scrap timber pieces to create jump uprights. I did this by drilling into the base and then adding glue and hammering the spikes in, and used nails to hold the bars. I later decided I needed taller, more refined uprights, and discovered that wooden broom handles could be purchased cheaply from the supermarket (though what they thought I was doing with all those broom handles I can only imagine). This time I improved upon my spike method - I bought some very long nails, sawed off the heads and then proceeded with the same method as previously. They are still fantastic - the spike on the end of the nail makes them relatively easy to drive into the ground anywhere, even under the current drought conditions in my backyard. At the time I made them, I also used fine dowelling to hold the jump bars, but I didn't like the possibility of the dogs stabbing themselves on it so I eventually knocked all of those off with a hammer and created new jump cups using plastic aquarium tubing stuffed with wire - these are quite soft but can be bent up into hooks that easily hold bars. I then simply cable tied them to the uprights. They have worked well for years, and can easily be re-bent back into shape if they start to flatten out. As actual jump bars I used the same cheap wooden broomsticks, just painted them black and white with gloss paint. They are still going strong (though many have disappeared to who knows where!!)
Weaving poles - my first set of weaving poles were permanent to one spot of the yard - I managed to drag up ten reasonably pole-shaped objects from around the yard and banged them all into the ground then painted them blue and yellow (my club colours). Porter learnt to weave using these poles. I later made myself a more portable set using the same method as for the jump uprights, with spikes and wooden dowel sawed up into approx 1m lengths. I found these to be quite flimsy so I then bought myself some regular wooden garden stakes and added more solid spikes to the bottom of them and painted - even though they are 'square' and some have cracked under the pressure over years of use and hard ground, at least half of them are still with us.
Contacts - I never really had any contact gear at home when training Porter. I did buy a wooden plank (probably the most expensive thing I've ever bought to make equipment!) and glued some of that cheap rubbery non-slip backing to it (which Josh promptly removed as a puppy). Even though it is somewhat warped now as it has been left outside and was never painted, it still serves as a useful contact trainer. I made my own foot target for the dogs by buying a cheap wooden placemat at Go-Lo and gluing felt to each side, one side yellow, one side blue so I could switch according to ground colour and how much I wanted it to stand out.
Flexi-Tunnel - I actually bought one of these - I know, by now you're probably amazed I didn't just create one out of paper mache :)
Today began to next round of equipment building. Because many of my jump bars have mysteriously disappeared, I decided it was time to get some more, and to that end made a trip to Bunnings to purchase some PVC pipe. Less keen to spend days painting it prettily black and white as I had previously with the broomsticks, I picked up some coloured tape to use to produce contrasting stripes on them. Of course, one can never go into Bunnings without finding multiple OTHER useful things, and if you have an open mind you can create a LOT of agility equipment from relatively cheap stuff.
Many of my original weaving poles have 'died' since I first made them, so I now need to replace those once the dogs get past weaving just 4 poles. Cruising for ideas I checked out the wooden garden stakes - could I just pound some of them into the ground and drop PVC pipe over them? Nah, that would be too much work every time I wanted to use them. Re-creating them with spikes would be better. Perhaps I'd go for some nice wooden dowelling then. However, in looking for the long nails to act as spikes, I made a wonderful discovery - decking spikes. Much like thick, giant nails, I found they could be bought at a decent length of 200mm, and so it was back to the PVC piping aisle to pick up some of the thinner piping in the hopes it would sit nicely over the decking spikes and act as poles. I was thrilled when I got home and discovered that the spikes banged into the ground very easily and the pipes were held up perfectly. I will have to go back and buy more now, as I just grabbed 4 to start with in case they didn't work.
I also found the special corner pipe connectors I needed to make my scramble training box, and also some screw-in pieces to add to them and therefore raise the box of the ground a bit more. In my excitement however, I didn't notice that of the four screw-in additions I grabbed out of the box only two were the same, the others were different types! One might think I would have noticed this since I DID check to see that they were all the correct diameter! Not to worry though - although two of them don't actually screw in, they still sit in the connectors enough to hold the box up for training.
So all in all it was quite a productive day! I shall report back on how the new weaving poles stand up to an actual training session (fingers crossed!!)
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