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A closer look at the “bounce” effect in agility dogs through the lens of workload monitoring, recovery, fatigue, and periodization. This post explains why a major competition weekend should not be viewed in isolation, how sudden workload spikes may affect performance, and why better canine-specific data are needed to support safer, smarter training decisions.

Written by: Dr. Arielle Pechette Markley, Director of Research, Red Sage Integrative Veterinary Partners Dr. Abigail Shoben, Associate Professor, Biostatistics, The Ohio State University College of Public Health Recent discussions have renewed focus on the safety of contact obstacles in agility, particularly the dogwalk. These conversations are important, but meaningful progress depends on moving beyond individual events toward objective, population-level data. As part of the

A response to current questions about dogwalk safety. Photo courtesy of Blue Merle Photography HDG Written by: Dr. Kim Cullen , Associate Professor, School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, Division of Population Health and Applied Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland Witnessing a serious injury happen in sport is always upsetting. At the recent Winter Olympics (Milano-Cortina 2026), for example, rare but dramatic injuries in events like a

Coalition for Agility Reporting on Incidents and Safety (CARIS) This initiative is designed to provide the first worldwide collection of evidential data to aid organizations in understanding the associated risks with the sport of dog agility in its various formats. The start point for this first research project of its type is to collect data on contact obstacle performance namely, the A-Frame, Dog Walk and Teeter / See Saw. Motivation for the Project In our last blog post