Feline agility courses have become increasingly popular among cat guardians who want to do fun and challenging activities with their furry friends. Agility is a great bonding experience, and it also helps keep your cat healthy and active. Build your own feline agility course for a fun and rewarding project that can benefit both you and your cat.
Consider your cat’s abilities and interests before you build your own feline agility course, . Some cats are natural climbers, while others prefer to run and jump. You can build a course to feed their natural ways to have fun. Includes a variety of obstacles such as tunnels, jumps, weave poles, and balance beams. It’s important to make sure the course is safe and sturdy, and that your cat can easily navigate through it.
With a little creativity and effort, you can build a feline agility course that will provide your cat with endless hours of fun and exercise. Whether you’re looking for a new way to bond with your furry friend or simply want to provide them with a stimulating environment, building your own feline agility course is a great way to do it.
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Understanding Feline Agility
Feline agility is a fun and exciting sport that involves training cats to navigate through a series of obstacles. There are several reasons why feline agility is important for both cats and their people.
Why It’s Important
Feline agility provides physical benefits for cats. Agility courses require cats to jump, climb, and run, which can help improve their strength, coordination, and overall fitness.
Related Post: Benefits of Feline Agility
Feline agility also provides mental stimulation for cats. Agility courses challenge cats to think and problem-solve, which can help prevent boredom and destructive behavior.
Agility can improve the bond between cats and their guardians. Training and working with your cat on an agility course can strengthen your relationship and provide an opportunity for quality time together.
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Planning Your Course
When it comes to building a feline agility course, planning is key. This section will cover two important aspects of planning your course: choosing the right space and identifying your cat’s preferences.
Choosing the Right Space
The first step in planning your feline agility course is to choose the right space. The ideal space should be large enough for your cat to move around comfortably, but not so large that they get overwhelmed. A room with plenty of open floor space is a good choice, but you can also use a garage, backyard enclosure or patio if it’s secure and free of hazards.
It’s important to consider the type of flooring in the space you choose. Hardwood, tile, or laminate flooring can be slippery and may not provide enough traction for your cat to run and jump safely. Concrete can be hard on Kitty’s joints. Putting down a rubber flooring or yoga mat can provide better traction and cushioning.
Identifying Your Cat’s Preferences
Once you’ve chosen the right space, it’s time to identify your cat’s preferences. Some cats may prefer to climb, while others may prefer to jump or run. Observe your cat’s behavior and note what types of activities they enjoy.
You can also try out different types of agility equipment to see what your cat likes. Some popular options include tunnels, hoops, and balance beams. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try out different combinations of equipment to find what works best for your cat.
By choosing the right space and identifying your cat’s preferences, you’ll be well on your way to creating a fun and engaging feline agility course that your cat will love.
Build Your Own Feline Agility Course
What you do for course building depends on what your goals are for your Kitty and agility. Are you just looking for a fun activity to do together with your furbaby? Or are you wanting to compete for titles?
Household Agility Course:
You can design a course using simple inexpensive household items if you are just looking to explore the benefits of agility for you and your kitty.
- You can make a ramp with a plank propped up on a chair.
- Make an A-frame with a pair of alpine scratchers.
- Your hurdles can be tension rods in a doorway, broomsticks stuck through the legs of chairs or the handles of jugs, cardboard tubes, or jumping over stacks of toilet paper.
- Tunnels can be a toy tunnel or as simple as a paper bag or a box with both ends cut off.
- A hoop can be a kids’ hula hoop. A pool noodle can be duct taped together to make a hoop or formed into an arch jump.
- Weave poles can be 2-liter bottles filled with water, soccer cones, or I’ve even seen people buy a bunch of dollar store plungers.
Be creative, gather your lure toys, clickers, and target sticks, and have fun with Kitty.
Pre-Built Agility Set
You can choose to purchase a set online. It’s going to be dog focused, and many are meant to be used outside. But it possible to put something together from Amazon if you want to go the pre-built way. Just be sure you get one where the jumps are adjustable to a smaller cat height, and the weave poles don’t have to be stuck in the ground.
This book, although again aimed at dogs, has plans to build 15 different obstacles.
Competitive Style Agility Course
The set-ups that you see when you go to a Cat Fanciers Association cat show to see a feline agility competition may all look a little different because each one is made by a different ringmaster or caging service. There are overall standards in size of the ring and the specific obstacles. But how they are made has room to maneuver. Which is helpful since some people pull trailers or add to a cage truck. We take ours in the back of a Prius along with our luggage and 3 cats so our set up comes apart and packs up.
Course Requirements:
Most of our readers are probably interested in making only the obstacles to train at home. But, if you need the full experience, the outside enclosure is minimum 20’x20′ up to 32’x32′ or any variation of these to fit the place you are setting up. It needs to be 5-6 feet high and have a slanted top to keep the cats inside. The sides are netting to keep the cats in but still let the audience see in. The bottom 2-3 feet should be solid to prevent distractions for the cats. We prepped ours with weed cloth melted to the netting with a warm iron.
Thank you to certified CFA Feline Agility Ringmaster Kim Dustin for sharing her design and construction tips with us for this article.
Materials List:
To build a feline agility course, you will need the following materials:
- 1/2 inch PVC piping for hurdles
- 1 inch PVC piping for hoops, weave poles and stairs
- 1/2 inch 90 degree elbow fittings
- 1/2 inch tee fittings
- 1 inch 90 degree elbow fittings
- 1 inch tee fittings
- 1 inch 5 way fittings
- PVC glue or duct tape
- 3/4 inch plywood
- 1/4 in Dowels
- Wood glue
- 4 latches
- Zip Ties
- Tire weights
- 2 commercial tunnels. Cat and dog tunnels are either too small or too large. This kids’ play tunnel is the closest to the required size.
- 4 commercial agility rings. You can make the hoop jump out of PVC as well. We opted for commercial rings and cable ties.
Step-by-Step Construction
- Cut the PVC pipes to the desired lengths using the saw.
- Sand the edges of the PVC pipes with sandpaper to remove any rough edges.
- Assemble the PVC pipes and fittings to create the desired shape of the course.
- Use the PVC glue to secure the joints if you don’t need to transport it in pieces like we do. Otherwise, use duct tape.
- The hurdles and hoop jump should be weighted with tire weights to help keep the obstacles steady.
- All obstacles need to be duct taped to the floor.
Hurdles:
- All hurdles must be 2 feet wide.
- One bar hurdle should be 4 inches high.
- Two bar hurdle is 6 inches high
- Three bar hurdle is 10 inches high
- Four bar hurdle is 14 inches high
Hurdle #1 Construction
4 4 inch pieces of 1/2 inch pipe for the base feet
2 1/2 inch Tee connectors
2 2 inch uprights of 1/2 inch pipe
2 1/5 inch elbow connectors
1 24 inch crossbar of 1/5 inch pipe
Connect the feet into the tee connectors to make two long pieces.
Connect the uprights into the remaining connection in the tee connector.
Connect the elbow fitting to the top of the uprights.
Connect the crossbar to the elbow fittings to complete your hurdle.
Hurdle #2 Construction
4 4 inch feet cut from 1/2 inch pipe
4 tee connectors
4 2 inch uprights cut from 1/2 in piping
2 elbow fittings for 1/2 inch pipes
2 24 inch crossbars cut from 1/2 inch pipe
Connect 2 4 inch feet and a tee connector to make a foot – make two, one for each side.
Connect a 2 inch piece in the upright position of the tee connectors.
Top it with another tee connector.
Connect a crossbar to both sides of the tee connector.
Put anther two inch upright on the tee connector.
Connect the elbow connectors to the top of the upright.
Connect the other cross bar to the elbows.
Hurdle #3 Construction
4 4 inch feet cut from 1/2 inch pipe
6 tee connectors
6 2 inch uprights cut from 1/2 in piping
2 elbow fittings for 1/2 inch pipes
2 24 inch crossbars cut from 1/2 inch pipe
Connect 2 4 inch feet and a tee connector to make a foot – make two, one for each side.
Connect a 2 inch piece in the upright position of the tee connectors.
Top it with another tee connector.
Connect a crossbar to both sides of the tee connector.
Put anther two inch upright on the tee connector.
Connect another crossbar to the tee connectors
Connect another two inch upright to the tee connector
Connect the elbow connectors to the top of the upright.
Connect the other cross bar to the elbows.
Hurdle #4 Construction
4 4 inch feet cut from 1/2 inch pipe
8 tee connectors
8 2 inch uprights cut from 1/2 in piping
2 elbow fittings for 1/2 inch pipes
2 24 inch crossbars cut from 1/2 pipe
Connect 2 4 inch feet and a tee connector to make a foot – make two, one for each side.
Connect a 2 inch piece in the upright position of the tee connectors.
Top it with another tee connector.
Connect a crossbar to both sides of the tee connector.
Put anther two inch upright on the tee connector.
Connect another crossbar to the tee connector
Put anther two inch upright on the tee connector.
Connect another crossbar to the tee connector
Put anther two inch upright on the tee connector.
Connect the elbow connectors to the top of the upright.
Connect the other cross bar to the elbows.
Hoops:
The height should be six inches from the floor to the bottom of the ring. The hoop should have a diameter of 1.5′. There should be 2 feet from the floor to the top of the hoop. We built a frame on feet made the same way as the hurdles. We took two of the commercial rings and attached them with cable ties with the bars of the frame in between. Make two hoop jumps.
For each Hoop Jump you will need:
4 6 inch pieces of 1 inch piping
2 1 inch 5 way connectors
2 4″ upright of 1 inch piping
2 1 inch tee connectors
2 20″ crossbars of 1 inch pipe
2 20″ uprights of 1 inch pipe
2 1 inch elbow fittings
Connect 2 6″ feet into 5 way fitting. Make two.
Connect a 4 inch upright to each 5 way fitting.
Connect the tee connectors to the 4″ uprights.
Connect one 20″ crossbar to the tee connector.
Connect the 20″ uprights to the tee connectors.
Connect the 2 elbow fittings to the 20″ uprights
Connect the remaining crossbar to the elbows.
Attach a hoop on each side of the frame. Attach to the crossbars and uprights with zip ties or duct tape.
Weave Poles:
This is the easiest obstacle to build. The 4 poles need to be 1.5 feet apart. The poles can be any height.
4 15″ uprights cut from 1 inch piping
3 18″ lengths of 1 inch pipe
4 6″ lengths of 1 inch pipe
4 1 inch 5 way connectors
Connect 2 6 in lengths of pipe to 5 way connectors to form the feet. Make 2.
Make the base: Connect 18″ pieces of pipe to the 5 connectors attached to the feet. Attach 5 way connectors to those pieces. Attach the final 18 piece of pipe to the connectors.
Put the 15″ pieces of pipe into the 5 way connectors to form the uprights.
Stairs:
All steps are measured from the floor. Floor to the first step is 10″. The second step is 19″ from the floor. The third step is 28″ from the floor. The top plate is 24 inches. The official rules say the stairs should split in two so you can put in a cat walk for more advanced cats. I’ve never seen that done. Our official course does not have that. If I was making one to keep in my basement I would do that so I could add a challenge as my cats got better at it.
This is hard to explain and my set is made a different, and more difficult to explain, way. We are not engineers.
Cut four 28 in x 36 in pieces of 3/4 inch plywood.
Cut stair treads into those pieces. Up 10 inches for the height of the first stair. Over 12 inches for the depth of the stairs. Up 9 inches from that point for the height of stair two. Over 12 inches for depth of stair two. Up 9 inches for the height of stair 3. Over 12 for the first half of the top deck.
Drill 2 holes in all the 12 inch runs. Glue in dowels.
Cut 4 12×24 pieces of plywood. Drill matching holes. The pieces can slide over the dowels to form the stairs.
Cut 1 24×24 inch piece with holes to fit all the pegs on the top 2 12 pieces. This is your top deck plate and holds it together.
Attach latches on both sides across where the two pieces meet in the middle at the bottom of the stairs and half way up to secure it.
It’s important to ensure that the course is sturdy and secure. Test it by gently pushing on the PVC pipes and making sure that they don’t move or wobble.
Building your own feline agility course is a fun and rewarding project that can provide hours of entertainment for both you and your furry friend. With a little bit of creativity and some basic materials, you can create a custom course that is tailored to your cat’s abilities and interests.
Training Your Cat
Training your cat for an agility course can be a fun and rewarding experience for both you and your feline friend. It is important to start with simple exercises and gradually increase the difficulty as your cat becomes more comfortable and confident. Be patient and consistent with your training, and always end on a positive note.
The first step in cat agility training is to teach your cat the desired behaviors. This can be done through clicker training, which involves using a clicker to mark the desired behavior and then rewarding the cat with a treat and praise.
Training sessions should be short and frequent, with a focus on positive reinforcement and fun.
Related Post: Read More About Training Your Cat for Agility
Maintaining and Improving the Course
Routine Checks
To ensure the safety and functionality of the feline agility course, it is important to perform routine checks. These checks should be done before and after each use of the course.
The following are some things to look out for during routine checks:
- Loose or broken parts: Check for any loose or broken parts such as screws, bolts, or hinges. Tighten or replace them as necessary.
- Signs of wear and tear: Inspect the course for any signs of wear and tear such as scratches or dents. Address these issues promptly to prevent further damage.
- Obstacles: Check the obstacles on the course to ensure they are secure and in the correct position. Adjust or replace them as necessary.
By performing routine checks, you can catch any issues early and prevent accidents from happening.
Upgrades and Modifications
As your feline friend becomes more skilled at the agility course, you may want to consider upgrading or modifying the course to keep it challenging and interesting.
Here are some ideas for upgrades and modifications:
- Add new obstacles: Incorporate new obstacles such as tunnels, bigger jumps, or balance beams to keep the course fresh and exciting.
- Increase difficulty: Adjust the height or spacing of existing obstacles to make the course more challenging for your feline friend.
- Change the layout: Rearrange the obstacles on the course to create a new layout. This will keep your feline friend on their toes and prevent boredom.
Remember to always consider your feline friend’s abilities and safety when making upgrades and modifications to the course. With these tips, you can maintain and improve your feline agility course for hours of fun and exercise with your furry companion.
Summary
When building your own feline agility course, it’s important to keep in mind your cat’s abilities and limitations. Start with simple obstacles and gradually increase the difficulty as your cat becomes more comfortable and confident.
Remember to always prioritize safety when designing and constructing your course. Use sturdy materials, secure all obstacles, and supervise Kitty during their training and practice sessions.
With a little creativity and effort, you can create a custom feline agility course that will provide endless hours of entertainment and enrichment for your furry friend or a practice ring for a competitive agility experience. So why not give it a try and see how much fun you and Kitty can have together?
