Building a tunnel is a great way to learn K9 Course Builder. Building a tunnel involves a few steps. First, build your base layer. Select the "Bale" tool on the left hand side, and then click to place bales. The default position looks like this:

And then you can modify the bale. Multiple ways exist to do this, but most involve selecting a bale first. To select the bale, click on it once, and it will gain a blue highlight.

Orientation​

From there, you can change its orientation, as you'll need "tall" bales to build a tunnel. You can change the orientation by:

• Keyboard: Hit the "o" key on your keyboard to cycle through the three orientations
• Sidebar: Hitting the "Orient" button on the left sidebar
• Bottom context menu: Hitting the F/T/P buttons on the menu that appears at the bottom
• Right-click menu: Right-click the bale and select "tall" from that menu

Rotation​

To rotate a bale, ensure it is selected as above. Then, you can rotate by:

• Keyboard: Hit the "r" key on your keyboard to rotate it in 15-degree increments. Or, use Shift + "r" to rotate it in 90-degree increments.
• Sidebar: The rotate button is near the bottom. Select the rotate button, then click the bale you want to rotate.
• Bottom context menu: Hit the rotate icon, it is to the left of the "Deselect" text.
• Right click menu: You can rotate in 45- or 90-degree increments.

Lean​

You won't use lean in a tunnel base layer, but it is accessed similarly. Only "flat" bales can have a lean to them:

• Keyboard: Hit the "L" key on your keyboard to cycle through the three orientations
• Sidebar: Hitting the "Lean" button on the left sidebar
• Bottom context menu: Hitting the arrow buttons on the menu that appears at the bottom
• Right-click menu: Right-click the bale and select "left" "right" or "none" from that menu.

Placing Bales Quickly​

All bales are placed in that default flat horizontal position, so it's easier to copy/paste bales to work quickly. To copy/paste a single bale that has been selected (blue outline):

• Keyboard: Standard keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to paste.
• Sidebar: The Copy and Paste buttons are at the bottom of the left sidebar.
• Right click menu: The copy, cut, and paste buttons are at the top of the right click menu.

Multiple Selections​

It makes sense sometimes to copy and paste multiple bales. Copy/paste works on whatever is selected, so select multiple bales to work even faster. You can select multiple bales by:

• Keyboard: Hold Shift while clicking multiple bales
• Mouse: Click and drag on an empty part of the editor grid to create a selection rectangle over the bales you want to select.

After selecting the bales you want to copy/paste, use those features as above.

Build your entire base layer for the tunnel. Don't worry if you're off by a few inches, you can always adjust bale placement later.

Then, you'll enter the tunnel manager to start adding the official tunnel features. It can be found on the sidebar under the "Managers" subheading.

Tunnel Manager​

The tunnel manager is a special sidebar. It has two functions at the top: setting your board edges and drawing your tunnel paths. The set edges tool is selected by default.

Setting Edges​

Click once on a bale at the tunnel entrance. Click on the other bale at the same mouth of the tunnel. A line appears. It's okay if it's a bit crooked, you can move those green dots once you exit the tunnel manager.

After marking all of your entrances, switch the tool at the top from Set Edges to Draw Path.

Drawing Paths​

Blue diamonds appear at the center of every tunnel entrance line you've marked. Now, just click one of those diamonds to start a path. Click at every intersection and turn. For this multi portal tunnel I'm building in this picture, I will click on the left entrance first, then the right entrance.

To finish this tunnel, we need to connect the other portal. Click once on the bottom portal, and then click the blue line that already exists to connect them.

And you're done with the base layer! Now, return to the editor to finish up placing any supporting bales and mark an anchor bale if your tunnel is not supported by a wall. To mark an anchor bale, simply select an existing bale and click the Anchor icon on the left sidebar ("Make Anchor"), the bottom toolbar (icon only), or the right-click context menu.

When you're ready to start building the second layer, your layer toggles are at the top of the sidebar, right below the name of your map. Select L1, L2, or L3 to jump between. Bales on different layers are different colors.

If you have ever judged a Barn Hunt trial, you know the specific pain of "Course Design Day."

You sit down with graph paper or Excel, spend hours dragging borders and counting squares, only to realize that your Senior course doesn't nest with your Master course. So you move a tunnel, which breaks your distance checks. You fix the distance checks, but now you're two bales over the club's inventory.

I built K9 Course Builder because I wanted my judge friends to spend less time fighting with spreadsheet cells and more time designing fun, flowy challenges for dogs.

The Problem with Excel​

Spreadsheets are great for math, but they are terrible for spatial design. They don't know that a tunnel is 18 inches wide. They don't know that a bale on top of another bale creates a climbable surface. They certainly don't calculate the path length of a tunnel automatically.

Building a Better Tool​

K9 Course Builder is designed specifically for our ruleset.

• Smart Validation: The editor puts some guardrails around what you do so that you can do what you need to. Rules are just a click away.
• Copy Maps (Nesting): Building up from Novice? Copy the Novice map when you're done to get working on Open. It works the other way, too.
• Inventory Tracking: As you drop bales, the counter updates. You'll know exactly how many bales you need on the floor.

Early Access & Founder's Pricing​

We are currently in Early Access. The tool is stable, but I am adding features every week.

To thank those of you willing to jump in early, I'm offering a Founder's Tier. If you subscribe now, you lock in the $75/year rate forever, even when the price goes up to $99/year after our official v1.0 launch.

Give it a spin. It's free to try.

Start Designing for Free