JFF Agility Equipment

JFF (Just For Fun) Agility equipment is whatever works. Looking at competition and practice equipment, and my equipment here may give you ideas for your own setup. What will work for you depends on several factors, will you need to transport it? if so, how?, who will help you set it up? how much can you spend? how "handy" are you? Here I show the equipment I put together, either by building it or purchasing it, with a special focus on being inexpensive, compact, transportable, and easy for one person to set up.

Each piece of equipment shown here can be purchased or built for well under 100 dollars. Some of it I show to stimulate your imagination, not as a recommendation. Most of the equipment can be easily purchased or built with hand tools, although a power drill is really handy. A power saw is nice, but not necessary since most lumber/hardware supply places will make these simple cuts for a very small fee. Selecting the pictures or the captions will take you to an enlarged picture and information on how I put it together. Because I know that tools names may not be familiar to you I include a picture of the tools in some cases.

For more information and resources on both competition and practice grade equipment you can buy ready made, or sources for designs you can build see my agility equipment links page.

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Tire Jump

The "tire" isn't just another jump. Dogs see it very differently and it takes different skills. My Dog loves to jump this one wrong. It is built from drainage pipe and PVC pipe.

Bar Jump
Bar Jumps made of PVC pipe are the cheapest and simplest equipment to make. I show a couple different designs here, and there are many other variations.

Weave Poles
Weave Poles are a real challenge for dogs. They just don't get it. Once they do get it some dogs really get a kick out of it. A dog that does weave poles well is really very impressive. We aren't quite there yet, but the last competition we were at we got pretty close. I show a couple of different styles of weave poles here.

Tunnel
A favorite of many dogs and unique to agility. This is one obstacle that can be done by almost any dog, and is fun as well.

The Collapsed Chute
The collapsed tunnel, or chute is a fabric tube, the entrance is held open, in this case, by a 3 foot long play tunnel.

The Dog Walk
The Dog Walk is like a wide balance beam with a ramp at each end. For many dogs the ramp is the hard part because the dog must get on and off close to the bottom, in the "contact zone". Jumping on or off above the contact zone is discouraged as unsafe.

The Table
The Table is used to ensure some control. The dog must stop and stay on the table for a five second count. Competition tables are much larger than this.

Wacky Walker
This isn't really a piece of agility equipment. It is for training a dog to think about where its back feet are. This can help for dogs having problems with the dog walk and teeter. It can also be used in conjunction with other equipment to help improve jumping style. Also see Wobble Board and Teeter Training

Picture of the Equipment Setup Panorama (long loading)

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Copyright © 1996-2003, Diane Blackman     Created: May 26, 1996     Updated January 15, 2007