Looking for an affordable, yet durable tunnel for back yard practice? Here it is. Featuring a steel coil that is sewn inside the lining (nothing will catch on the dog), and like a big slinky it condenses up for easy lightweight storage. The material is made of heavyweight dacron polyester fabric. It is durable, resists the roughness of dogs claws, yet weighs right around 10 lbs! Color is Royal Blue with Red Stripes on the coils.
"Dear Professor K. Nyne,
I saw an agility competition once that was entirely tunnels, and only tunnels! Wow. Am I 'in the dark' about some training challenges to tunnels? If so, would you clue me in so I don't miss out on something?"
- An Agility Student
The Professor's Answer: (written by Pamela, President of Affordable Agility)
Certainly, I’ll clue you in on everything I know! The class you saw was “Tunnelers” in NADAC, and there is a lot of fancy footwork required by the handler in that game. Tunnels are an awful lot of fun for dogs, and present a unique challenge because they can actually go either way. Dogs love them if they’re introduced properly, and can be afraid of them if they’re not. Make sure your dog is one of the former, not the latter!
Starting off on the Right Paw
Start out with the tunnel set up straight and ‘scrunched’ up so that it is shorter. Have your dog sit and stay (or have someone hold him), and then go to the other end and call him through the tunnel. Give treats and praise and tell him how wonderful he is and wasn’t that fun? Repeat, slowly lengthening the tunnel. Don’t make it too long, too fast. Remember, light at the end of the tunnel is just as important for dogs as it is for people! The next stage is to send your dog through the tunnel with you running alongside it. Then you can start… *horror* …curving it so your dog doesn’t see the light at the other end. More advanced work is to ‘send out’ ahead to a tunnel with you standing still.
Popular Call Words
Use a specific command for this obstacle, like ‘tunnel’, ‘go tunnel’ or ‘through’. This is called “obstacle discrimination”, and while body language is the most important thing, there are certain challenges on courses that are better tackled if your dog knows the obstacle name. The goal is to get your dog to go bonkers for this word just as much as he does for ‘wannagoforaride’?
Avoiding the Traps
Judges (who design courses for competitions) know how much dogs love tunnels. They can sometimes be tricky in setting up their courses by including a tunnel ‘trap’, where your dog has to choose between a tunnel and another obstacle that are placed very close together (snaked under an A-frame or a Dog-Walk). The trick here is make sure your dog knows his obstacle or directional commands to avoid the vacuum of tunnels over the proper obstacle. Train for tunnel traps! Place your tunnel under a contact obstacle or near a jump where it will tempt your dog to run in (because it’s fun!) and train him that nope, tunnel is not always the best choice. Set up another tunnel on the other side of the course, and lay out your course so that sometimes it’s tunnel A he runs through, sometimes its’ tunnel B, and he only gets to go in when he hears those marvelous words, ‘Go Tunnel!’ You’ll save yourself and him points at trials, and by limiting when he can go in the tunnel, you’ll make them even more wonderful when he does get to go in (like that favorite toy you keep out of reach and is only for when he is a very very good dog!). Mix things up. Sometimes he gets both tunnels, and sometimes no tunnels to keep him looking to you for tunnel directions.
Let’s Talk Tunnels
Practice tunnels are good for back-yard training and practice. 24” competition diameter (or close to it) is best. If the tunnel is too small, your dog will learn to crouch and this will slow them down. Competition Tunnels are heavier-duty and have very thick coils. The longer the tunnel, the better, because you can do curves and s-shapes for ‘tunnel traps’ (see above). If you have two shorter length tunnels with the same diameter, you can attach them together to make a longer tunnel by using large office binder clips on the edges. No matter what kind of tunnel you have, they’re easy to handle; they scrunch up like a slinky for storage.
Remember, if your dog gets scared of tunnels, straighten them out, shorten them, and let the light shine in with plenty of praise and love and treats. Agility is fun!
written by Pamela, President of Affordable Agility
Start out with the tunnel set up straight and ‘scrunched’ up so that it is shorter. Have your dog sit and stay (or have someone hold him), and then go to the other end and call him through the tunnel. Give treats and praise and tell him how wonderful he is and wasn’t that fun? Repeat, slowly lengthening the tunnel. Don’t make it too long, too fast. Remember, light at the end of the tunnel is just as important for dogs as it is for people! The next stage is to send your dog through the tunnel with you running alongside it. Then you can start… *horror* …curving it so your dog doesn’t see the light at the other end. More advanced work is to ‘send out’ ahead to a tunnel with you standing still.