http://www.instantagility.com Fun for you and your dog - on the cheap! Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:23:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Just wanted to say a Happy Holidays to everyone. Roger has been swamped with work and has not been able to work on agility stuff for us lately. I am trying to encourage him to do a dogwalk or an a-frame next. I think he is considering the dogwalk closely but is ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/11/24/happy-holidays-everyone/ We won't be building tunnels or chutes here at Instant Agility.Here then are the results of my researching in looking for the least expensive: Affordable Agility (affordableagility.com) has tunnels, barrels, and chutes. Their competition-quality items are the cheapest I have found on the internet. They also have "practice" versions, which are ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/07/14/tunnels-chutes/ The broad jump will give your dog an opportunity to jump a distance horizontally rather than the vertical challenge offered by normal hurdles, as Kipp shows us above. We've created a jump with lower boards at either end with a raised center (this allows us to run the dogs in ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/06/23/broad-jump/ Weave poles are great fun for your dog (as Tess demonstrates), but they do take a bit of training. These adjustable poles make that training easy--start with them open, allowing your dog to run down the center "channel," and slowly narrow that over time until your dog is weaving through ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/05/05/adjustable-channel-weave-poles/ There are lots of ways to train the weave poles. What we have here are channel weaves. You start out with the weaves wide open and run the dog down the middle. Then you gradually close them until eventually your dog is doing them all lined up. You will want to ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/05/05/obstacle-training-weave-poles/ This ladder is useful for teaching your dog to mind their back feet--and is a fun obstacle in-and-of-itself. You can build it with or without side rails (which are helpful if your dog is what is technically known as a "cheater pants"). With side rails as shown, the ladder will ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/05/02/footwork-ladder-with-side-rails/ The ladder is useful for teaching your dog to notice where they are putting their back feet. This is good to do before they get on the dogwalk or teeter. To get your dog to go over the ladder, just drop treats between the rungs. My dogs, after a ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/05/01/obstacle-training-the-ladder/ This is the most basic of agility obstacles. It's easy to make, will only take you about an hour and will cost about $12 in materials. You will need two adjustable jump cups in addition to the materials listed below for every jump bar on your hurdle. Tools You will need a ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/04/14/bar-jump-or-hurdle/ This is the easiest of all obstacles to train. You just put your dog on leash and lead them over, then reward. A piece of cake! Here are tips from Tess & Kipp: Start low, so your dog does not cheat and go under it. Use a variety of things as jumps, so ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/04/14/obstacle-training-bar-jump/ Adjustable cups for holding cross-bars make constructing standard jumping obstacles a piece of cake. The secret to our cups is to raid the do-it-yourself irrigation section at Home Depot. Each cup will take just a few minutes to make and cost about $1. The clip-on part of the cup is ... http://www.instantagility.com/2008/04/13/adjustable-jump-cups/