Dog Obstacle Course
& Race Track Outdoor

With imagination and a little of manual ability, you can easily build all the obstacles needed for to make fun run track.

• plan a track that can stay fixed for a long period of time, because its not any fun to have to make and unmake a track every Sunday afternoon. Have this in mind when you are choosing your material for a construction.
• Use material that your dog can't get hurt on, and take extra precaution making sure that the varnish and paint used on wood is not toxic and if possible eco-friendly.
• Tables and boards must be stable, maintaining them horizontally over stable supports, and not getting knocked over.
• The bars on the jumping obstacles must be loose, so that they will fall if barely nipped.
• The floor of the track must not get swamped, slippery, or get soften even after a summer storm. If happens the game will have to be interrupted.

What's the most important on a obstacle race track?
The most appropriate obstacles are: a tire, a tunnel, a slanted wood plane, slalom, is for length and height jumping. The broom jump, the narrow foot-bridge and swing; however, are left to agility (danger of injuries).

Obstacle Jumping: The dog barely needs motivation for the jumping exercises. On the contrary: sometimes you need to put brake on their enthusiasm and limit the period of exercises. Give a green light for the dog only to jump the obstacles of his track, but don't encourage him to jump anything in the garden (fence, hedge, bench, pool etc.) because:

• fixed obstacles always carry the risk of getting injured,
• when jumping, the dog may enter prohibited terrain to him,
• this can induce (encourage, persuade) the dog to jumping the garden fence. At the beginning of his training, height jumping must precede tire jumping, because this requires more effort and body dominion.

Tunnel: Never start with a long black tube, because the dog will be intimidated by such an unusual tunnel. Build a short and clear tunnel (for example, with a light colored cloth). It's necessary that the dog sees a familiar face at the end of the tunnel. You can make sort of a tent made from wood or some blankets, well to begin with that's more than enough. The height must be right with the dogs' size.

Ramp: Its not very hard to make it oneself like the slanted wood plane required for the most agile. But its construction takes time and material.

Slalom: Start with a couple of bars (5 at the least) separated from each other. So that the escort can easily watch the dog going through each one. The bars have to give in when you trip (which is permitted) on them.

How to make it easier

• The dog must recognize the basic commands before he can commence with the training in the obstacle race track.
• The confidence that the dog has on his escort (the owner) and the understanding of each other are important conditions for the motivation and disposition the dog has to cooperate.
• Encouraging with a toy or a candy (for example, throwing a toy behind the obstacle to jump) during training. Accompanying him through the whole track with loud sounds (<up!>, for example) and body language (for example, showing the palm of your hand indicating <stop!>). Toys and candies must end up being superfluous with time, since its about the dog showing his voluntary disposition to doing what his master wants of him.
• Look for the causes of lack of motivation (exhaustion, health problems, or boredom). Maybe its convenient to take a pause or take a smaller and easier route.
• Note: the goal is before anything else is that the dog passes through each obstacle without a problem.

more on Obstacle Race Tracks