Why I Built K9 Course Builder
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.