Playing with Agility at Home

I have really been slacking in practicing Agility and I think it was because the equipment was kind of daunting and I didnt want to go out and spend hundreds of dollars. Well I have discovered Dora really enjoys agility so I have been pushed to practice. After spending $9 at the CATC auction on a jump, I decided to get creative and build my own back yard agility course this weekend. So Dora, Belle and I got collected random pieces out of the house and came up with quite the little set up. So much of a set up Isabelle quit on me and went into the house (she doesnt work in the backyard what so ever, we have agreed that this is Isabelle's sanctuary and she doesnt have to work if she doesnt want to in the backyard) Dora and I conquered the equipment though! This has motivated me to search the internet and come up with more ideas! I really liked this website and think as we further along in our studies we will get out power tools! http://www.dogplay.com/Activities/Agility/agilitye.html

In the meantime we used: 1. wooden dowels for make shift weave poles. A lot of this is really just teaching Dora what weave means-we still have large spaces between them. She has to still be pushed to weave back and forth at this point

2. our mini tunnel-we purchased this for cheap and Dora loves to play with it. I think we have to be careful because she thinks tunnel is just a toy lately! She wants to sit in the tunnel and relax in between our play times.

3. lawn chairs are great pause boxes. So much so Dora prefers this one and every chance she gets she runs like hell and jumps on the lawn chair whether we are doing agility or not.

4. We tied a hula hoop (99 cents from walmart) in between 2 poles for a Hoop. Dora really needed to practice this because last week in class she learned it was a lot easier to run under the hoop and squeeze thru the poles- so much so the instructor put a board up to stop her!!! This really helped Dora to understand the command "hoop"

5. We got out a few bricks and curtain rods for jumps (since we used our regular jump poles for the hoop) and really worked the command "jump!"

Dora enjoyed the course as much as I did. She is getting so smart that she anticipates the commands and tries to run ahead of me. I had to switch things up a bit and go backwards to get her thinking.

I just wish Dora's father would not care about the grass in the backyard and let us leave the course out ;)

P.S. if you have any recommendations for agiltiy equipment let me know ama0722@yahoo.com We also really need to make a Chute as Dora absolutely hates that piece of equipment!