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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

INTRODUCTION Injuries are common in sporting dogs. However, research is lacking on the prevalence, types of injuries and risk factors for injury for most companion dog sports. The largest proportion of dog sport research exists for the sports of greyhound racing and endurance sled dog racing. There is also a large body of research evaluating injuries in working and military dogs. However, little is known about the increasingly popular companion dog sports. The majority of th

IS THE DOG WALK THE BIGGEST RISK?  Written by: Dr. Arielle Pechette Markley, Director of Research, Red Sage Integrative Veterinary Partners and Dr. Abigail Shoben, Associate Professor, Biostatistics, The Ohio State University College of Public Health As most of the agility community is aware, there is a large discussion currently about dog walk safety. There have been a lot of recent reports, particularly on social media, about dog walk falls. These falls are often dramatic

KEEP, CHANGE, or ELIMINATE? Written by: Dr. Abigail Shoben, Associate Professor, Biostatistics, The Ohio State University College of Public Health As most of the agility community is aware, there has been a lot of discussion about what to do about the current dog walk. Many are currently advocating for changing the dog walk to be lower and/or wider. Some advocate for keeping it as is (while more data are collected), and still others suggest eliminating it completely. Given t