In order to do that, you need to either build, or buy your own agility equipment. While you will save some money in building the necessary equipment, it requires a great deal of skill, as well as some rather unique materials, and a viable blueprint for the construction. The option that more and more agility trainers are turning to is to simply buy equipment from the manufacturer who supplies the events in question. Thanks to the growing popularity of dog agility training events, the obstacles and equipment needed are getting easier to find.

Buying dog agility training equipment is beneficial in other ways as well. If you are buying directly from a major distributor or a manufacturer, then there is a good chance that the dog agility competition will be using the exact same supplies you trained your dog on. Building the equipment at home means that you may build things on a different scale, and your dog may become scared or confused at the event itself.

Professional agility training requires that you train your dog on a wide variety of objects, but one thing to remember in dog agility training is that there are well over thirty major types of obstacles that your dog will face in a competition. That can add up to a lot of money and space spent on training equipment. Instead of buying one of everything, buy just the major components, like teeter-totters and tire jumps, and make the most of what you have lying around the house. A 2×4 stood on it’s side makes a great low jump, and you can collect fallen branches to act as weave poles.

One of the most difficult pieces to consider is the chute, which is not only expensive, but it takes up a lot of room in your home as well. This is notoriously one of the most difficult obstacles in agility competitions, however, so you would be well advised to either purchase one, or make your own. Your dog will need experience with this particular object in order to be successful, because the vast majority of dogs wouldn’t even know where to begin.

No matter what you do, remember that dog agility training was introduced because of the fun atmosphere, and it is not meant to be a stressful competition. If you want your dog to excel in this environment, however, it is essential to have the right training tools to practice with.

The most common obstacle, directly borrowed from agility training’s like to equestrian events is the jump. These obstacles come in a variety of styles, from a single bar to multiple, and even the tire jump, which requires dogs to jump through the center of a suspended tire. In most competitions involving a variety of breeds and ages, the tire will be omitted, as larger dogs may be physically unable to fit through, and taking too big a chance is detrimental to the health and safety of the dogs involved. Smaller jumps are present in almost every competition, however, and are designed with safety in mind. If a dog misjudges a jump and hits the bar, it will fall away harmlessly.

The second major type of obstacle is called the contact obstacles. These are generally larger contructs, like a the A Frame or see-saw (sometimes called a teeter-totter), which require dogs to jump on and off the object from two contact points. As long as they do this, they are able to move on to the next obstacle, but if they jump on or off from another point, they must re-do the obstacle.

An A Frame is constructed of two boards held on an angle which meet at a single point. A see-saw is a replica of the playground equipment, and requires the dog to show patience and balance in waiting for the board to switch position. Another type of contact object is the dog-walk, which is a thin suspended plank that the dog must move across.

Some dog breeds, such as terriers, are particularly attracted to the burrowing obstacles, such as the chute. This is a large round structure similar to a pipe that the dog must make their way through. They vary in size and shape, just like many of the obstacles, but are almost always large enough for medium sized dogs to stand upright inside of them. Collapsed chutes are similar to regular ones, but end with a plastic or nylon piece which does not maintain it’s structure. It is up to the dog to burrow their way out of it.

Weave poles come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and layouts, and require the dog to weave in and out of them, just like a skier would do for a slalom. This is traditionally one of the most difficult obstacles for dogs to train on, and there is a variety of tools which will aid you in training your dog to make the complex movement through the poles. Some competitions will place poles in a straight line, minimizing the amount of movement back and forth, while other competitions will offset the poles to force the dogs to move farther to get around them.

The final agility obstacle that commonly appears in competitions is called the pause table. This is simply a table, often covered with astroturf, which the dog must stand on, without moving, for a period of one to three seconds. This is a test of the trainer’s control over the dog more than the dog’s agility, as it is fairly simple to jump up onto the table.

There are some other forms of training equipment, but these cover the basics that you are likely to run into at a traditional dog training event. While they may be of different size or shape, it is generally accepted that dogs can adapt to these minor changes. What you may find most difficult is the dogs ability to adapt to a completely new object without having trained on it beforehand.