Sunday, March 31, 2013

Equipment Creations

Ya know, it seems like I spend at least one day every month working on agility equipment.  I am either maintaining something, or creating something new.

USDAA is beginning to move toward 5 foot wide jumps and the "majority" must have wings.  So I decided that I needed to 'up' my inventory of jumps with wings.  They do change the way that you can move around the course, some times blocking your path.  Certainly they make it easier for dogs to jump the backside of the jump (if they are a jump hugger).

I had a set of stand alone wings made with lattice that I bought years ago.  They are great, but irritate me slightly when I have to keep picking them up from the wind.  So, last month (told you I work on equipment once a month) I made a wing design that attaches/detaches from the jump itself.  It has a little bit of material on it.  Again, irritating because the wind takes it down.

So, here is my new design.  I can adapt my existing jumps to have these wings which is super nice on the pocket book.  I wanted to make something that might be a tad bit more wind proof--today was a great test.  All wing jumps are down EXCEPT these :).  Also, since I don't glue my jumps they still break away if the dog collides with them.  They are 9 inches wide which I know is a little skinny, but I wanted to keep the weight down, have it wide enough it helps my dogs take back sides, but narrow enough that they aren't tempted to go through the wing.  They can easily be widened if I decide to go in that direction.

Wing PVC Jump





The other item on my agenda was a wall jump.  I was setting up some courses that required a wall jump and on rare occasion we do see one on course.   It also occurred to me that Tangle has not seen one so I should probably get him familiar with the obstacle.  My other two dogs decided to jump on the top and then down the other side the first time they saw it.  Definitely a fault :)

Well, I really didn't want to spend too much time constructing something so I decided this design would work for familiarization purposes for the dogs.

Ghetto Wall Jump
The 'wall' is made of Styrofoam, maybe 4 inches thick.  The wall itself is 22" high and the displaceable brick is 4 inches high.  It is held up by sandwiching it between two of my existing jumps.  Later I might cut this down so that the total height will be 22, but for the moment I needed 26 inches.

The line of hearts at the top of the wall are the displaceable bricks.