Have you seen other dogs doing agility and wanted to try it without buying all the fancy equipment? At first glance, it may seem daunting. Where can I even find equipment? Are there even options for how to make DIY dog agility equipment or to try dog agility training at home?
Imagine your pup flying over jumps, weaving through poles, and ducking through tunnels, right in the comfort of your yard or home. Creating your own DIY dog agility equipment is not only budget-friendly but also allows you to tailor your equipment toward your dog’s specific needs. In this guide, we’ll be less concerned about meeting competitive standards and more focused on creating equipment that’s right for your dog. Agility training is one of our favorite games to play with dogs outside, especially when it’s nice out!
That’s what we’re here to show you! It’s not nearly as hard as it seems, and it is a lot cheaper than you’d think. There are a variety of different equipment options, ranging from using household supplies to constructing DIY equipment. Get your supplies and get ready to be creative, because it’s time to get started with your pup.
Benefits of (beginner) dog agility
We’ll discuss the benefits of DIY dog agility equipment next, but we first wanted to take a moment to talk about dog agility for beginners. First and most importantly, it’s a fun activity that you and your dog can do together. The whole point here is to enjoy spending time with your dog, and agility is a great way to do that, even if you never intend on competing. We love watching our dogs weave through poles and jump over obstacles, and we think you will, too!
Beginner agility training can also help increase your dog’s activity level. This is great for high-energy breeds and senior dogs, but is beneficial for any dog. As long as you take it slow and start with reasonable expectations, beginner agility training can help your dog lose some weight, gain some muscle, and improve joint health. As our dogs (and we) age, maintaining muscle mass and joint health becomes a priority. Some of these exercises, like cavaletti, are even used as physical therapy exercises to recover from limb injuries.
Finally, it can help keep your dog’s mind active and provide mental enrichment for your dog. Mental enrichment can have an incredible impact on your relationship with your dog. If you don’t enrich your dog’s mind, they will find ways to do it themselves, and you may not like the results. We’ve all been there at some point, and Goomba went through a phase where he would chew anything he could get his mouth on, including: door trim, shoes, and dog beds. Check out our posts on the signs your dog is bored and enrichment ideas for dogs to head off those issues.
Benefits of DIY dog agility equipment
Creating your own DIY dog agility equipment comes with a wide variety of benefits besides saving money. To start, creating your own equipment allows you to customize your equipment, so it’s perfect for your dog. For example, a pug and a great dane will not use the same jumps or tunnels. For us, Goomba requires a larger than normal tunnel because of his height and joint issues while Primmie can use most standard dog equipment.
In addition, it’s much easier to teach agility behaviors (especially to skittish or rescue dogs) if you use temporary equipment or make your own. Continuing with our tunnel example, if you use our temporary options first, you can increase the width or height of the tunnel while your dog learns the behavior. After your dog is comfortable, you can make or buy your own based on your dog’s needs and abilities.
If you have the room, teaching your dog behaviors inside is even easier because of the decreased number of distractions. With a little planning (check out our dog training plan template if you need help with that part!), you can make it easy and fun for both you and your dog.
Finally, it can help make agility more accessible. Premium agility equipment can get absurdly expensive, and that’s not realistic for most people unless you’re competing. Creating an easy DIY dog agility course, or buying quality, affordable options, means you can have all the fun without racking up debt. We just do agility training with our pups for fun, and being stressed out about buying a $300 pause table makes it significantly less fun. There are plenty of more affordable ways to go about this, especially if you’re just starting.
DIY agility is also on our list of favorite games to play with dogs inside, but there are other options, too. With a little modification, it’s easy to make most agility equipment work inside on a rainy day. If you’re looking for a way to burn some energy with your pup inside, but don’t have a lot of space, check out our guide on how to make a how to make a DIY flirt pole! It’s great for smaller spaces and is one of Prim’s favorite ways to play!
Safety notes and other advice
While DIY dog agility equipment is great for most pups, we wanted to provide some additional opinions to help point you in the right direction. To start, you’ll want to make sure that you have an appropriate amount of room around any equipment. Asking your dog to jump over an obstacle when they are uncomfortable about the space is going to make your dog less willing to perform the behavior. This is even more important during the learning phase, but something to keep in mind throughout.
We also highly recommend placing any dog agility obstacles on a non-slip surface, especially if they involve a change of direction or jumping. This could be a rug or carpet inside, or dry grass outside. As with humans, jumping, landing, or changing direction too quickly is a quick way to injure yourself. Non-slip rugs are a cheap way to accomplish this inside and are extremely affordable.
Finally, we recommend starting off with easy behaviors and increasing the difficulty slowly. The goal here isn’t to have the dog that jumps the highest, unless you later decide to compete. You wouldn’t expect to go from never running to doing a 5k with no training, so why would you expect your dog to do the same? If you’re not sure about your dog’s ability to handle a specific physical activity, talk to your veterinarian.
For some additional helpful advice, check out our guides on dog proofing a fence, what to do with dog poop until garbage day, and making a dog friendly yard. In particular, we’ve had issues with keeping the local wildlife out of our yard, which we’ve been able to resolve and can show you how we did it! These guides will keep your outdoor area safe for your dog and more fun for you both.
Our favorite rewards
For DIY dog agility equipment, whatever rewards you use for normal training will work perfectly, but here’s some of our favorites.
We use string cheese and unseasoned chicken for a lot of our rewards. They’re super cheap, easy to break apart, and our dogs love them! Peanut butter can work great, too, if your dog loves that. If we want our pups to be a little less motivated, we’ll go down to dog jerky or a similar treat. We have a whole list of our favorite treats for this in our post on low calorie dog treats. We break up a lot of them depending on what we’re doing.
This is one of our dogs' two recent favorites for jerky and we've been trying to always have some. It's a little greasy, but our dogs love it and are very motivated when it's a reward. Honestly, all of the flavors are good, but duck has been the most popular recently. It's a great option if your dog has sensitivities or allergies and we highly recommend it.
If your dog is more toy motivated, whatever your dog’s favorite toy is works great. You’ll just have to be careful with the toy and training because your dog could get overexcited about the toy and not pay attention to the obstacles. Goomba is prone to this and we often “downgrade” him to cheese and chicken if he’s too crazy. He loves this Hero boomerang enough that he loses all self-preservation when it’s out. We get a few weeks of play from each one, which is fantastic for him.
Options for DIY dog agility equipment
Now, the part you’re here for: DIY dog agility equipment. We’ll be giving a few different options for each piece of equipment, including temporary, DIY, and pre-made options, just in case one works better for you. If you find any better options for DIY dog agility equipment, let us know and we’ll give you a shout out in the post! Our pups are always happy to try out new equipment and activities.
Dog agility jumps
Let’s start with the easiest and cheapest piece of DIY dog agility equipment first: jumps! Making a temporary DIY dog agility jump is easy with household items: all you’ll need is something to use as a bar and two objects of a similar height. Your dog’s height and athletic ability will determine the height, but we recommend starting low and then increasing the height as your pup gets more confident. One of our favorite options to help our dogs learn the behavior is 2 yoga blocks and a broom. Some other common household items that work well as supports are buckets, chairs, or your dog’s crate.
If you’re wanting a temporary jump outside, make sure the objects can get dirty or are weatherproof, but the same guidelines apply. Lattice is perfect for one end and offers a lot of height options, but yard furniture or any of the previously mentioned items work great, too! You’ll have to be a little more creative with outside configurations, but it’s still possible.
If you want to build your own DIY dog agility jump, we highly recommend using PVC to do it. It’s lightweight, weatherproof, and extremely affordable. It’s essentially the same material that dog agility equipment uses, just not pretty. If it bothers you, you can spray paint it whatever color you want.
Check out our guide on dog agility jumps if you want to create the one pictured above: it’s easy for anyone to do! It’s easy to move and lightweight, which makes it perfect if you don’t have a ton of space to store equipment, like us.
If you’re looking for pre-built equipment, we have 2 options that we really like. The first option is Trixie’s adjustable dog jump. It’s great, but doesn’t work well inside because of the stakes that help keep it stable. We use ours a lot, and it’s our preferred option for outside use.
Trixie's dog jump is our preferred jumping equipment for outdoor use. It's lightweight, affordable, and easy to adjust. It even comes with a storage bag so it takes up less space when it's not in use!
Our second option is to use a cavaletti set for dogs as a jump. It sounds odd, but it works perfectly, especially if you have a medium or small dog. Even if you have large dogs, you can use something like a yoga block to change the height easily. We use this option most often inside, especially since we have multiple sets because of Goomba’s physical therapy.
You really can’t go wrong with any of the options here, but we recommend trying out one of the free temporary options if it’s your first time. If you and your dog like the experience, decide if you want to build or buy your own from there!
Tire/hoop jumps
Creating a dog agility hoop is the next piece of DIY dog agility equipment we can make easily. It’s the same process as the options for the jump, just with a top. The height of the bottom and top pieces will vary based on your pup’s size and ability, but the measurements will be similar to the bar for jumping equipment. Our preferred setup for learning indoors was to use 2 chairs, a broom handle, and a dog bed to make a “hoop” for learning the behavior, but any of the options mentioned in the previous section are perfect if you can add a top.
As with the jump configurations, hoop options are the same but tailored toward outdoor furniture and items. Our favorite outdoor option is 2 deck chairs, a broom, and an elevated dog bed (we used K&H’s elevated dog bed, which is Prim’s favorite). If you have one, a hula hoop makes a fantastic hoop, too, and we use this option the most because of its convenience.
If you’re interested in building your own hoop (we highly recommend PVC), it’s easy even if it’s your first time building DIY dog agility equipment. All we’ll need to do is replace the corners at the top of the jump with Ts and cut 3 more pieces. Check out the DIY section of our guide on dog agility hoops for a more detailed explanation.
If you’re searching for a pre-made option, we highly recommend the Trixie dog agility ring! It’s our preferred option for outdoor use, and it’s quite stable, especially for how light it is. Trixie is typically our preferred option for beginner dog agility equipment because of the price and quality.
Whatever option you go with, your dog will love your DIY dog agility equipment! We recommend trying out the temporary options first, so you can make sure you build (or buy) your next setup to the size that’s best for your dog.
Tunnels
The next piece of DIY dog agility equipment we’ll discuss is the agility tunnel. It’s similar to the hoop, except you use the ground as the bottom bar and the barriers are longer. A lot of dogs don’t dislike confined spaces, so we recommend starting with a tunnel that is much larger than required and working toward a more reasonable size. Temporary options are perfect for the learning phase since it is much easier to adjust the dimensions and make it easier for your dog to learn. We recommend using quality treats like Stewart’s freeze-dried beef liver to help encourage your dog during the learning phase.
For a temporary indoor setup, our favorite option is using an ottoman, couch, and a firm dog bed to cover the top. It’s by far the most convenient option for us, and it’s easy to adjust the width (you can move the ottoman closer or farther away) which makes it perfect for learning. Some other options are to use a hallway with couch cushions as the sides and top, or chairs with a dog bed, depending on your pup’s size.
Outdoor options are similar, but with weatherproof or outdoor items. Deck furniture is perfect, but if that isn’t an option, we have a variety of other items to use. A tarp over chairs or garden stakes works great, but this will depend on what your outdoor setup looks like.
If you’re looking to create your own DIY dog agility equipment, making your own dog tunnel is straightforward with limited work. We have a few different options on how to get there, and the most commonly available option is simply using a children’s play tunnel. It is a great option if you have a smaller pup, as they are commonly available and affordable.
If that’s not an option, using a collapsible laundry hamper or other collapsible bag is a great option, too. After you make sure the width is appropriate for your dog, cut out the bottom. That’s it! Our current favorite is a Fiskars collapsible yard bag from which we removed the bottom. It’s 22 inches wide, which makes it a perfect option for dog agility equipment for large dogs, like Goomba.
We love the Trixie Dog Agility Tunnel and have been using it for years. To start, it's large enough for both of our dogs that are 80 lbs. The tunnel also has multiple ways of securing it to the ground, which means we can use it in a variety of places. It's also collapses easily and stores in a small area. We highly recommend it and think you'll love it, too!
If you’re more interested in buying equipment instead of making DIY dog agility equipment, our favorite option is Trixie’s dog agility tunnel! It’s almost 16 inches wide and a little less than 7 feet long, which makes it perfect once your dog understands how to tunnel well. We’ve been using this tunnel for years and it’s held up great. Our favorite features are how small it collapses and the different ways in which you can anchor it so it doesn’t move. Primmie uses Trixie’s tunnel most of the time.
If you want more information on any specific tunnel option, check out our guide on cheap dog agility tunnels. We’ve used them all, and there are options for every situation.
Weaving
Next up on our list of DIY dog agility equipment is weave poles! They’re one of our favorites to do with our pups, and there are a few easy options.
Our favorite option, and by far the most used option, is to use reflective driveway poles outside. They’re cheap, commonly available, and easy to adjust the intervals of, which makes them perfect while your dog is learning behavior. We’ve used these for years and use the same poles for one of our DIY dog cavaletti options, too. Garden stakes or bamboo stakes also work well, depending on what you have available, but we like the reflective ones.
For indoor use, we don’t have a ton of options for temporary setups in our house. Ideally, it would be a tall, skinny, and stable object so your pup can walk around, but not over it. Our favorite option for indoor use is to use the Trixie cavaletti set and to stick the poles through the tops of the cones. You can get up to 6 “poles” per kit this way, which is enough for our purposes. Most of the time, we’ll separate this into 1 jump and 4 weave poles, and our dogs will have a great time.
Trixie's cavaletti set is our favorite, by far! We love that it's easily adjustable, lightweight, and works for small and large dogs. We've been doing cavaletti with Goomba for years as physical therapy and Trixie makes the movement simple!
We’ve tried a few different options to build our own weave poles, but they all involve walking over a not-flat object to hold the poles together. We had the best luck with a PVC setup (check out our DIY weave poles article for more info), but Prim doesn’t like the uneven surfaces in the middle that hold it together. Goomba doesn’t care as much, but we prefer the previous two options and the next option better.
If you want something that looks a little less construction zone-y than the reflective poles, we'd recommend Trixie's agility poles. They function similarly to the reflective poles, but are a thicker and not much more expensive. We think they're a bit easier to see for your dog, especially since dog's don't do great with seeing orange usually.
Finally, the prettier version of the reflective driveway poles is Trixie’s weave pole kit. We use this or the reflective poles (they’re basically the same thing, just different appearances) the vast majority of the time. Personally, we use the reflective poles more, but mostly because we keep them in a more accessible place since they get used heavily around our yard to mark or enclose various plants.
We’ve tested a few different pre-made indoor kits and found their quality disappointing. If you have one you like, give us a shout! We’d love to recommend one that we feel good about.
Agility platform
Our next piece of DIY dog agility equipment we’ll be discussing is an agility platform, or pause table. We’re using this piece of equipment a few different ways, but the most common are as a standalone platform and as a component of our agility walk in the next section.
For a temporary indoor setup, we actually have quite a few options. This doesn’t need to be a ridiculously tall setup for your dog, especially when you start, but will vary greatly depending on your dog’s height and ability. Our most used option is an ottoman in our living room, and our pups are quite confident using it. We’ve also used pieces of wood on flat yoga blocks. Firm couches or even taller elevated dog beds are options, depending on what you have available.
For outdoor use, it’s a little trickier, but still possible. If your steps are angled so that there’s a low jump (2 ft ish), that’s an option. Otherwise, a small wooden platform on top of edgers or a similar material is a great option. Benches or a picnic table work great, too, as long as your pup can’t get a foot between the boards, as that’s an easy way to have an injury.
If you want to DIY dog agility equipment, an agility platform is easy for small dogs, but gets more challenging for larger ones. We built an elevated dog bed that’s the height required for our dogs to look out the windows comfortably. It works great as a pause table or as a platform for an agility walk. Check out the build your own section in our guide on how to create your own agility platform. It’s intense, but our dogs are crazy and 80 lbs.
We’d also recommend non-slip tape for the top to help your dog stay stable and not slide after landing. Other than that, it should be perfect. You can adjust the size and height of the platform easily for your own pup.
As with some of the other more involved obstacles, we haven’t been enthusiastic about the value of the pre-made options. We like the Blue 9 platforms, but not the price tag on them. It could be a good option if you can pick one up used, though. We’re unwilling to pay that much money for a glorified piece of plastic on legs.
Agility dog walks
Our next piece of DIY dog agility equipment is the agility walk. Not your normal walk on a leash, the agility walk is 2 ramps on either side of a platform. If you’re pressed for space or just learning, we can make do with one ramp and a platform, and that’s what we did to teach the behavior. If you want more specific information about one of these options, check out our guide on how to make dog agility walks.
The DIY versions of this are more challenging to make, but it’s still possible. Our favorite option we found for a temporary setup is to use a wider piece of wood (2×10, or so depending on your dog’s width) with non-slip tape along with an elevated region that’s accessible. For us, that was an ottoman with a 2×10 in our living room. It works reasonably well.
For an outdoor version of this, we’d recommend the same configuration, but using a platform that’s outside. Stair landings work great if you’re able to access at least one side. If not, you can make a platform with some blocks and a piece of wood.
We use our version of a DIY dog agility walk much more often than the temporary setup. Our favorite way to do this is to use the PetSafe foldable dog ramp as the ramp portion and to find another object to use as the platform. Our most common setups are the PetSafe ramp with either an ottoman inside or our deck outside. Both have worked great over the years, and we’ve been toying with buying a second ramp to make life easier, too. For more ideas for the platform portion, check out the previous section on dog agility platforms.
We like and use the PetSafe dog ramp enough that we wrote a review on it. Check it out here: our favorite foldable dog ramp.
We (and our pups) love this foldable ramp! It doesn't take up much space, is easy to move, and is sturdy. We use it for various agility movements, to help get Prim in the tub, and when Goomba had multiple leg surgeries. We don't think there is a better value for a dog ramp!
- Easy to move
- Siderails & non-slip surface help keep your pup on the ramp
- High weight capacity
- Weather resistant
- Not the best ramp for tall vehicles
We’ve not been particularly excited about the pre-made ramp options, especially compared to our other DIY dog agility options, and don’t like any enough to recommend. If you find one that you like, give us a shout and we’ll try them out. We’d love to find one to recommend and will give you a shout out if we use it!
Cavaletti
While they may not initially seem relevant for DIY dog agility equipment, we wanted to include cavaletti on this list, too. For one, they make a great option for jumps for smaller dogs and are useful for other obstacles, too. They’re also ideal for helping your dog learn new behaviors since they are smaller and more adjustable. We’ve used ours for years because of Goomba’s physical therapy and ongoing recovery from CCL surgery. Either way, they are excellent at letting your dog learn what their back half is doing, which will make any agility work much easier.
Creating a temporary set of cavaletti inside is easy, but requires some supplies. To start, you’ll need 3 items you can use as poles. Brooms, mops, or reflective poles all make great options for this. After, you’ll need something to hold the poles: yoga blocks, chairs, or dumbbells all make perfect options. Then lay the poles on the bases and you’re good to go! We recommend starting low and encouraging your dog to move slowly when learning.
Outdoor use is the same idea, but with different options for supplies. For poles, yard stakes, sticks, and scrap wood all make great options. For the bases, pavers, scrap wood, or lattice make perfect supports. Don’t be afraid to get creative!
If you’re here for DIY dog agility equipment, we have 2 options that we’ve done and worked well, depending on your crafting preferences. The first is to buy some plastic cones, velcro strips, and small pieces of PVC. If you’re trying to avoid cutting PVC, it’s sold in 2 foot sections at our Lowe’s. You’ll only need to attach Velcro strips to the cone and around the PVC. Check out our guide to making cavaletti for dogs for more specific information on this process.
Trixie's cavaletti set is our favorite, by far! We love that it's easily adjustable, lightweight, and works for small and large dogs. We've been doing cavaletti with Goomba for years as physical therapy and Trixie makes the movement simple!
- Easily adjustable
- Weather resistant
- Affordable
- Stores & moves easily
- Works for large & small dogs
- Can be knocked over if it's windy outside due to their light weight
If you’d rather just buy something than make DIY dog agility equipment, we’d highly recommend the Trixie cavaletti set for dogs. We’ve been using it for years and it’s worked great! We actually have 2 identical sets so we can do 6 at a time! It’s lightweight, easy to store, and affordable.
Other obstacles
There are a variety of other pieces of DIY dog agility equipment that we can make with a variety of difficulty levels. The two most common are seesaws and A-frames. These are both larger pieces of equipment that aren’t as easy to store or make. We’ll address both briefly to give you an idea of the options.
See saw
See-saws are possible to DIY, if you’re fine with a little more precise crafting. We don’t recommend creating a temporary one because it needs to be secure. It’s essentially 3 parts: a platform, a base, and a bracket to secure both together. Full disclaimer: we have not built one, mostly because we don’t have the space to store it or use it in our backyard, but we would try this DIY agility see saw as the basis for our design. As for pre-built options, we don’t feel like any of the ones we’ve seen are worth the cost.
A frame
Another of the more challenging pieces of DIY dog agility equipment, an A-frame can get tricky in a hurry. If you want to make a low and shallow one, it’s easy enough to create, but the steep ones become more technical because of safety issues. An A-frame looks like an A shape, with the middle brace keeping the two ramps from sliding away from each other. This is another obstacle that we haven’t created yet, but we like this DIY dog agility A frame design, if we ever do. As for pre-built options, we feel even less good about their value than the seesaws.
Conclusion
Creating DIY dog agility equipment can be an easy and rewardable experience for both you and your pup. We love seeing our dogs weave through poles, fly over jumps, and crawling through tunnels! We highly recommend trying the free (or cheap) options before going all in on premium equipment.
We’d love to see your success with DIY dog agility equipment! Share your photos of your dog trying out your favorite DIY dog agility equipment with us on Instagram by tagging @therulybully.
Have fun!