Home Agility Course: Tunnels

Home Agility Course: Tunnels

I feel like I have been such a slacker lately, not keeping up with my posts but I have been so busy working my blog has taken a back seat. Today's post will be the first of a series on creating your own agility course. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before but a few months ago I started my dog trainer's apprenticeship teaching agility.I took agility classes before I started teaching them so I have been doing agility with my dog for about nine months now. Khazi isn't exactly an agility super star but I love running with her and I feel with a bit more practice she would do much better. I have been wanting a home agility course for quite a while now and three days ago I took the first step and bought her two regulation standard tunnels. Tunnels are the one piece of equipment I was not going to make at home because while I had a plan, it was extremely complicated and probably wouldn't have worked anyway. You can find tunnels online that aren't too expensive but they are not standard size and my dog would never fit in them. If you have a smallish dog and you don't care too much about meeting standards you can use a children's play tunnel or cut the bottom out of a collapsible laundry basket. As this wasn't an option for me I started looking online for actual tunnels, unfortunately the best price I could find was about $300 plus a substantial shipping fee for a 10ft. tunnel. That was way too expensive for me so I talked to the head agility trainer and she told me about a place in Milton called Bauhound Haus Inc. A few days ago mom and I decided to go on an adventure and take the long drive up to Milton. Bauhound Haus was a cute little store on Main Street. At first we were worried there would be no parking because it is on such a busy road but we found there was ample parking behind the store you just had to loop around. The store is a lot like most specialty pet stores, there were a lot of toys, training equipment, and various accessories. I was happy to find doggie dumbbells there as well as I am trying to work on Khazi's mouthing tricks. I had to ask about the tunnels because they are kept in the basement. I should have called ahead because there were only two tunnels left and they were both the same colour. I had gotten in touch with the owner through their Facebook page and he said there were many colours available, unfortunately, they take the tunnels to shows so they were not in the store. If you decided to go definitely call first. My trainer suggested that I get tunnels different colours because if I ever compete in the future, my dog would be more likely to accept equipment that is different than what she is used to. The training facility I work  at uses green, red and yellow tunnels so I wanted any other colour. I got two royal blue tunnels with yellow coiling. I really wanted a blue and a different colour but hey, at least she has never used a blue one before.


The tunnels I got were 10ft. long with a six inch pitch (the spacing between the coils) I don't know how wide the opening is but it is standard size. They cost about $150 each and I was very happy with that price, it is the cheapest I have seen them. If you are interested in buying agility equipment I highly recommend their tunnels. I would like to point out that the tunnels do not include any weights so you will have to buy sandbags or make them yourself like I will be doing.

Khazi seems to really like having the agility equipment at home and she seems more interested in doing work here than she does at the facility. She didn't have any problem switching to blue tunnels but just to be sure she wouldn't have issues, I introduced it to her the same way I did the first time she used a tunnel, only much faster. She really didn't mind the new colour, she had more issues the first time she went through the green tunnel at class. Here she is, pooped after our agility training session.

 As for the rest of my course, it is all going to be homemade. I found basic instructions online and I will be adapting them to meet the AAC regulations. I would love to say I will be posting a tutorial every week but I don't think my course will get built that quickly. I need help with this project so I will have to make it work with my parents schedule as well and they are busy renovating the basement, all by hand. Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, my course will include one or more of the following: single jump, high jump, broad jump, chute, A frame, teeter totter, dog walk, pause table, tire jump, weave poles and of course my tunnels plus the sandbags I have to make. If and when that all gets done I will be including my training schedule, various handling exercises and some course layouts for both games and more standard runs.

XOXO J and Khazi