[Leiurus]

With a new pup at home and a third wave of Covid and its string of lockdowns, I pondered the acquisition of a dog treadmill. I had always thought about getting one, but not being able to exercise my dog as much as usual (dog parks closed, friends in confinement, etc...) made the matter more urgent.

Now the problem was that, living in Thailand, my options were extremely limited...A good slatmill is already pricey, but add to this premium price the shipping of such a large item to Asia from the US or Europe, plus the import tax paid on the combined price of the good AND the shipping, and you end up with with a price multiplied by 2 or 3 folds.

There is a local option, but really made on the cheap, and a friend who got one for his Boxer warned me against it: bad rollers, flimsy construction, etc...made that he could barely use his and he ended up trashing it after not even a year.

Being a designer by trade and a DIY enthusiast, I decided to make mine.

I opted for a curved treadmill instead of the traditional flat one, for quite a few reasons I won't list here unless you're curious about them, I don't want to make this post too long.

I'm happy to give more details if someone is interested, but once again to keep this post short I'll just post some build pics that give an idea of the process:










And here's a video of the very first time the pup tried it, it's treats / praise heavy but we wanted him to associate it with positive things:

He was just shyly walking on it back then but after not even a couple of days he was running his ass off
He now randomly jumps on it for some short sprints, which is one of the reasons for picking this design.

That's it, just wanted to share it with you guys in case someone finds it interesting.

EDIT: My bad, I didnt see the DIY section of the forum when I posted this thread, moderators please feel free to move it there where it belongs

 

[Leiurus]

I originally posted this thread in the Conditioning section, then tried to edit it (see EDIT above...) and it simply vanished from the forum, so Im reposting it here (managed to copy / paste a cached version). I hope the first one wont pop again, making it a double post.

 

[jttar]

What a fantastic job you did on the treadmill Leiurus! Had to cost you a small fortune in sealed bearings alone. It looks like the end result was well worth it. Your boy should have many years of enjoyment and exercise on it. Thank you so much for sharing the progress and the finished product with us.
I know I've told you before but Tiger sure is a handsome boy.

Joe

 

[Leiurus]

What a fantastic job you did on the treadmill Leiurus! Had to cost you a small fortune in sealed bearings alone. It looks like the end result was well worth it. Your boy should have many years of enjoyment and exercise on it. Thank you so much for sharing the progress and the finished product with us.
I know I've told you before but Tiger sure is a handsome boy.

Joe

Joe, first of all, thank you for the kind comments on the treadmill and about Tiger of course. My wife and I love him dearly.

Secondly, the original post popped back on the board, making it a double, I edited and reported it for deletion so that it doesn't clutter the forum, sorry about this glitch.

Now, the bearings didn't cost that much. I would actually have preferred to have them open because removing the seals and the grease from 180 bearings sure took some time, the factory grease is too thick to get them to spin freely, you gotta clean them up and put some thinner, sewing machine oil instead. I found a local deal to get them @50cts a pop, so all in all the bearings costed me 90 bucks approx.
All included, bearings, PVC pipes, Baltic plywood, the parts for the belt, etc...added up to around 600 bucks.
It's not cheap but the only off-the-shelf curved treadmill I've found is made by a Dutch manufacturer, that sell theirs for almost 2K USD. On top of that I would have had to pay the shipping and the import tax, bringing the total price well over 3K, so to me it's a bargain (and more fun). It also took a lot of elbow grease though
I'm actually working on a 2.0 version, that if it works as well as I hope it will, should be smaller, lighter, faster and much easier to build.

What I really like is that Tiger uses it when he wants...He spontaneously jump on it 3 to 5 times a day for a short 3-5mn spin, which is exactly what I wanted, so to me it's mostly a successful project.

 

[jttar]

So glad all your work and time paid off and that Tiger uses it on his own. I have a large conventional people treadmill that I use for the dogs when the weather doesn't permit walks outside. One of mine will get on with me and sometimes she will just climb up on it and then turn and give me the look like , come on man, turn it on.

I would have thought the bearings would have been a lot more then they were, good deal on them. Thanks again for sharing it with us Leiurus.

Joe