Weave Pole Hack

This past weekend we attended our first outdoor NADAC trial and overall it was great.  I am very very pleased with how well Zora ran, and how happy she was.  But once again this group, same as the more local to us trials, had weave poles with bases that were about 3/4″ thick.  And Zora’s weave performance overall was ugh so slow and pokey often with a skipped pole.  So vastly different than her zipping through striding performance at home on our flat based weave poles.

I was chatting with a long time friend at the trial and he suggested using wood as a cheap easy way to create a raised thin base similar to the ones at trials.  Great idea!

This morning I grabbed my drill, a 3/4″ drill bit and some 1″ x 2″ boards I had left over from my storm door project.  I measured and marked the spaces on the wood using my metal weave bases as a guide and drilled the appropriate holes.  I then simply threaded the wood pieces over the metal pole stakes on my metal bases and wha-la, I now have weave bases that look and run like the ones at the recent trials.

I could even see, if I didn’t have access or funds for competition metal bases, using the wood ones with the PVC poles threaded through or stick in the ground weaves through the holes.  Simple, fairly inexpensive, yet effective (1).

1.  All told from the time I found my tools to the time the wood was measured, marked, drilled and threaded over the metal posts it took all of 15 minutes to make these.  And as far as costs go to make a set of 12 24″ spaced weaves you would need 3 8′ 1x2s at a cost of about $2 each, compared to a set of 6 24″ spaced metal bases going at $120+ per set.  Even if you had to go out an purchase a drill and drill bit, the cost to make these would still be less than to buy a set of 12 metal competition based weaves.  They definitely wouldn’t last anywhere near as long, but for backyard training and trial prep use, are serviceable.  For my purposes, I can already see Zora’s weave performance improving.  The first time I asked her to do these new modified weaves she was the hesitant pokey trial weaving dog, by the 3rd rep she was nearly at her zippy striding usual at home on the flat bases weaving dog.