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How to Make a Tyre Jump |
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Home > Equipment Index > How to Make a Tyre Jump
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read this first If your dog is new to agility he or she will need to learn the tyre jump under the supervision of an experienced trainer. The best way to prevent accidents and injuries is to train under controlled conditions. I never place the tyre at an angle or at the end of a line of jumps and I never let Jamie take it at full speed. Have fun.
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| The first
few times Jamie met the lollyframe tyre in the ring he wouldn't jump it at all.
He'd only ever practiced through the lolly tyre before, that's the one with the
tyre set up on a post. I didn't blame him. He clearly thought the idea
was to jump the little bar at the bottom and go under the tyre. We didn't have
access to a lollyframe tyre so the only thing to do was to make one. The tyre on this page
is the second attempt. The first was too embarrassing to go on the page.
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| First I bought eight
eye bolts of the screw in kind and some waterproof duck tape. Getting a tyre was easy. My friend Carol spotted it at the dump and brought it home for me. The tyre measures 21 inches inside diameter and falls within the Kennel Club rules and the FCI rules. Kennel Club Tyres must be a minimum of 18 inches and FCI must be 38cm to 60cm in diameter. The new rules for the tyre will be a minimum of 457mm in January. I also cut two pieces of 2"x2." |
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The
2"x"2" is inserted into the tyre and the eye bolts are screwed through the
tyre into the wood. The Kennel club rules say that the bottom half of the tyre should be filled so this is a good time to do it. I filled mine with the collection of plastic carrier bags I didn't know what to do with. Everything in our house has its use. As you can see the tyre so kindly donated by Carol has a good deal of tread and the whole thing needed covering. I nicked the hysband's roll of damp proof course for this and wound round the whole thing with duck tape.
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| The frame was made in
exactly the same way as for the training jump without
wings. I bought some dunnages from the DIY shop to make it. These are bits of wood that they don't know what to do with so they sell them at 50p each. The dunnages were for the uprights and cross piece. Each upright is approximately 42 inches high and is 4"x4" timber. The cross piece is 6"x3/4" planed timber. The feet are two pieces of 3 foot by 1inch pallette wood. Under current UK Kennel Club regulations the centre of the aperture should be 3 feet from the ground. Under FCI regulations it should be 80cm for standard dogs.
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I screwed the rest of the eye bolts into the frame and lined them up with the eye bolts in the tyre. Then I dropped some rods through the eye bolts and the whole tyre wobbled like crazy. Time for a rethink and after trying numerous different rods I twisted the eye bolts round and lined them up the other way. |
| With the tyre jump
finished except for painting it was time to try it out on Jamie. I'm not taking any
chances with this one and its not going anywhere near his agiltiy course until he's seen
it and been through it a few times. Here he's in the more restricted area of the
back garden. He's not going to race at it. Jamie is quite tall and is easily
capable of hopping through the tyre from a standing start. I show it to him first
before I let him go. He also knows I've got food about my person and he's a greedy
pig.............
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 That's why he goes through first time. |
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