Way To Weave

I’m an American dog sports competitor and instructor who moved to Istanbul (pop. 15 million) in 2007. I brought my Border Collie (Savvy), of course, but sold my agility equipment thinking our agility days were over. At the time, Turkey had no kennel club, no training facilities, and no competitions.

Recently, Turkey joined the FCI, and is expecting to hold real agility trials this year for the first time. I’ve even imported a Papillon puppy (Dash) to train for future competitions. Unfortunately, the lack of equipment in Turkey is a serious issue. Last year, 30+ dogs from all over Turkey participated in four agility seminars.  For each seminar, we had to pool all the equipment in Turkey to come up with even a “semi-regulation” course.  We were thrilled even to have an 8’ teeter which falls over sideways and stick-in-the-ground weaves. However, my fast-weaving Border Collie failed to impress anybody when he knocked all the weave poles flat every time he tried them.

I decided on my next annual trip to the U.S., I’d try to bring back some REAL weave poles. They had to be steel based (for Savvy), and they had to convert into channels (for training Dash). And they had to be light and portable enough to carry up and down flights of stairs every day. After much searching online, I realized the now-obsolete Porta-Channels would be perfect. I asked Ace if he could look through his warehouse and find a set of 6, and he did… as long as I didn’t mind beige sliders on a white base. No problem! I asked Ace not to send poles, as that would be too much to take on the plane.

Ace shipped the base to my sister’s house in Indiana, and I picked it up a couple of weeks ago during my visit. Wow—I was so impressed right off the bat. The workmanship, sturdy construction, and paint job were all great.  Everything was packaged with care. The instructions were great, but weren’t necessary, as assembly was a piece of cake. Every slider fit on every leg perfectly.

A few days later, I arrived at O’Hare Airport with Dash, two Rubbermaid tubs as my checked bags, an over-stuffed carry-on, and the 3-piece weave base. I had put the legs and sliders in the Rubbermaid tubs, and was going to attempt to take the weave base on as my “personal item.” I was stopped briefly at airport security, as they figured a 44” long hunk of steel would make a formidable weapon. I explained that they were part of an agility weave pole set on the way to Turkey. Because I’m a middle-aged American female, and because I was traveling with my dog at the time, they smiled and let me through security. Getting on my Turkish Airlines flight was no problem. Nobody questioned the steel rectangle I was carrying, and it fit easily into an over-head bin. The only difficult part was the landing… sunny Istanbul had been hit by a blizzard and would eventually get over a foot of snow!

While waiting for the snow to melt, I cut some PVC for the poles.

[The first pic shows] how compact the set is when disassembled (shown next to an 8 lb. Papillon): When the snow was finally gone, I easily carried the weave poles outside in a single trip and set them up in about a minute.

In [the second] photo, the poles are a little wonky because the PVC sizes in Turkey are different from the U.S. I later found I could wrap a rubber-band around each pole support, and the poles stay perfectly upright.