New displacable tire

My first tire was made of a pool noodle taped together with duct tape and hung in this frame. Two neighborhood boys jumped through it and tore it to pieces. I then made one out of the very popular drain pipe. However, I worried my dog would hurt herself when she hit it.

Recently someone on my agility equipment yahoo group posted links of dogs getting hung up in the tire. I decided to redo my tire with pool noodles again. Hopefully this design would displace if my dog were to misjudge the jump and hit it.

Here is a picture of my drain pipe tire:

When my dog clipped this tire you heard the clunk.


Here is a picture of my new displacable tire:

If my dog clips this one it is very soft. If it is a hard hit, the pool noodles should pull out of the sleeves. However, there is something about a pool noodle tire that invites people to jump through it. I assembled this and asked my husband to test it to see how much force it would take to displace it. He proceeded to try to jump through it, with the sleeve on the right tearing. You can see where I patched the tear with orange colored duct tape.

The frame on my tire is very oversized but the tire diameter is regulation. To change the height on this tire you slide the bungee cords through the sleeves and adjust the plastic chain on top. In this design the chain is not really needed as the tire hangs properly without it.

There is more resistance to the noodle coming out of the sleeves than I would like but I think if the dog actually hit it, it would displace without bringing the frame down. That is what happened when my husband tried to go through.