Dog Agility
Contact Equipment

Dog Agility Contact Equipment
Contact equipment includes the dogwalk, see-saw and A-Frame.   Most of the sellers on ebay sell garden equipment which doesn't take up so much room and is very useful for training contacts.  If you're looking for full sized equipment you might be lucky and find someone selling their equipment at a reduced price.  Here are the live listings.

Teaching The Contact Equipment
Some dogs are braver than others when it comes to learning the contact equipment.  In particular the see-saw can be scary.  I put a plank on top of a small log to get Jamie started, but Sasha just followed a titbit and didn't seem to notice that things were moving underneath her.  Jamie needed reassurance and I had to put my arm round him at first.  If you can get a dog to walk on something narrow like a plank balanced on a couple of house bricks it really helps with their confidence.  Some people start with walking between the rungs of a ladder placed on the ground. A dog has to learn to touch the contact part of the equipment and there are various ways of doing this.  One way is to get someone to hold a titbit at the bottom of the ramp to encourage the dog to go right to the bottom instead of jumping off.  Some people use training hoops at the bottom of the ramp while others prefer to teach the dog to stop on command. If you belong to a club you'll probably see a number of different methods of teaching and you need to find the one that works well for you and your dog.  Good luck.