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 and can result in catastrophic injury. Because of the dramatic and scary nature of the falls, it is easy to assume that dog walk falls are a major contributor to injury among agility dogs and that reducing dog walk falls would improve safety.
In our last blog post, we discussed three key questions around the “keep, change, or eliminate?” question. This blog focuses on what data we have around the first question: “what is the actual current risk?” and discusses what data might help organizations and individuals make informed decisions.
Injury rates associated with obstacles
The first question is how often are dogs being injured from contact with or falling off the dog walk, and how does this compare with other obstacles? Over the past 20 years, there have been a handful of surveys of agility handlers asking them to report on injuries to their dogs that kept them from competing in agility training or competition. Three of these reported specifically on injuries attributed to specific agility obstacles and a fourth was conducted by our research group (Pechette Markley, et al) so we report that unpublished data here as well. Note that there are differences among the surveys in how injury was defined, as well as when and where the surveys were distributed.
We have compiled a summary of the studies in the table below and report the percentage of dogs experiencing injury due to obstacle crash / fall:

One of the studies (Inkila, 2020 survey) specifically asked about dog walk and A-frame falls leading to injury. For the dog walk, there were 8 reported injuries attributed to a fall, affecting 0.9% of all dogs (1 in 108 annually). For the A-frame, 4 injuries were reported as due to a fall, affecting 0.5% of dogs (1 in 200 annually).
What do we make of this data? First, it is interesting that the percentage of dogs injured as a result of the dog walk has potentially decreased over time, from approximately 4% to around 2%, although definitive conclusions are challenging. Second, injuries perceived to be the result of contact with or a fall from the A-frame appear to be as common, if not slightly more common, than injuries from the dog walk. Third, in all but the oldest survey, injuries perceived to be the result of a jump obstacle were more common (in some surveys substantially more common) than injuries from the dog walk. And finally, among all surveys, a large percentage of injuries were not perceived by the owner to be the direct result of contact with or a fall from any obstacle. Injuries occurred running between obstacles, when rewarding, as well as at unknown or undetermined times (such as a chronic/repetitive overuse injury).
If we are concerned about lowering the overall risk of injury to agility dogs, we should also consider the most common causes of injuries to agility dogs. We do this by considering the percentage of agility injuries perceived to be caused by various sources – the higher the percentage of injuries caused by a certain obstacle, the greater the overall benefit to improving the safety of that particular obstacle. This table shows the same injury data but divided by the total number of injuries reported in each survey.
Percentage of agility injuries attributed to obstacle crash / fall (individual dogs may contribute more than one injury):

Here we notice that the percentage of injuries due to a dog walk incident hovers around 10% in most studies but is as low as 3.5% and 5% in two of the three most recent surveys. In contrast, the percentage of injuries perceived to be due to the jump obstacle is higher (nearly 20% in two of the three most recent surveys). And note that the percentage of injuries perceived to be due to any obstacle is no higher than 65% and that when handlers were asked to report any injury (regardless of perceived cause) to their agility dog (Pechette Markley), this percentage was only 24%. This suggests that the causes of agility injuries are varied and complex and that focusing on one specific obstacle may not be the most efficient way to reduce overall injuries in agility dogs.
Even if we could implement strategies to make the dog walk “completely safe,” many agility dogs would still experience an injury. If we eliminate or change the dog walk, would the next step be to eliminate or change the A-frame, as it was responsible for a similar number of injuries? What about jump obstacles? Tunnels?
Injury Severity
But what about injury severity? Even if dog walk falls are an uncommon cause of agility related injuries, if they are a cause of most of the severe / traumatic ones, that would be useful knowledge. Here we generally lack data, but the data we do have suggests that is not true when severity is defined as length of time away from the sport.
The Cullen (2009 survey) study classified injuries as “severe” if they were reported to take 2 months or longer to resolve. Among injuries attributed to contact with or fall from an obstacle, the percentage of severe injuries averaged 43%, with generally low variability based on the specific obstacle: Dog walk (44% severe), A-frame (42% severe), bar jump (45% severe), tire (37%), weaves (41%), teeter (44%), spread jump (51%).
This is not particularly compelling data, but also does not suggest that the dog walk is a leading cause of severe injuries – lots of other obstacles (and non-obstacles) can also lead to severe injuries.
Incidence of falls (regardless of injury)
And what about the fact that falling off the dog walk, even without injury, is traumatic in other ways for both the dog and the handler? What is the overall fall risk?
A very recent study (presented at ECVSMR 2024*) by Leena Inkila found that, in Finland, there was a rate of 2.9 falls/1000 dog walks in training and 3.3 falls/1000 dog walks in competitions. We don’t have equivalent data for other organizations or other countries, but a video review study by our group (DiMichele 2024) evaluated 296 dog walk performances at the UKI US Open in 2021 and observed one fall out of the 296 dogs (3.3 falls / 1000 dog walks). An unpublished evaluation from the 2024 UKI West Coast Open observed 1440 runs and 5 falls (3.5 falls / 1000 dog walks) (data provided by Greg Derrett). These data are all remarkably consistent with each other, suggesting an average fall rate of approximately 1 per 300 dog walks, but the studies are not representative of all agility competitions nor all agility training scenarios.
Note that these are just fall rates – certainly not all falls lead to injuries but some percentage of them do. And fall rates don’t count “near miss” incidents where the dog misses a foot placement but does not fall off. The impact of “near miss” incidents on injury rate or other negative consequences (for dog or handler) is unknown.
The only comparison data to the dog walk fall rate data is a single study looking at tunnel incidents. This study, performed by Dianne Ford and her research group, reported 10.99 incidents/1000 tunnel performances (see note below**). This is quite a bit higher than dog walk falls (over triple the risk!) and dogs perform tunnels more frequently than they perform the dog walk. But how tunnel incidents are related to overall injury risk is unknown.
We have no data at all on how often other other obstacle and non-obstacle related incidents occur in agility. How often do dogs launch from the apex of the A-frame? How often do they crash a wing jump? How often do they have a rotational fall? How often do they break a weave pole? How often do they slip trying to dig in for a turn on any particular surface? How do any of these incidents affect injury risk, both short and long term?
Conclusion
These data are quite interesting, as it appears that the risk of fall and injury related to the dog walk is not as high as people may think, and is not as high as other obstacles. Also, the majority of injuries do not occur as a result of any obstacle incident. So, rather than focusing on the dog walk, would our time and cost be better spent trying to improve safety in other areas, such as surface? course design? dog fitness?
The recent effort by several organizations to systematically collect dog walk fall data in competitions is an excellent way to get better information on the true current risk of dog walk falls, regardless of if they resulted in apparent injury. This information will assist both organizations and individual participants in assessing the actual risk of the dog walk and how it might compare to other risks of agility participation.
Having a better estimate of the true risk, both of any fall and of a fall-related injury, as well as risk factors for falls and injury are critical pieces of decision making about any future risk mitigation strategies, which will be the subject of our next blog post. Stay tuned…

REFERENCES
* This preliminary dog walk data from Leena Inkila came from an oral abstract presentation at the 2024 European College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation conference. The data presented in the future peer reviewed publication may be different and will include many more details that are not discussed in this blog post.
** This preliminary tunnel data was initially published as an executive summary online, but finalized data is pending manuscript peer-review and publication.
Paper references
Cullen KL, Dickey JP, Bent LR, Thomason JJ, Moens NM. Internet-based survey of the nature and perceived causes of injury to dogs participating in agility training and competition events. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2013;243:1010-1018. https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.243.7.1010
DiMichele JK, Pechette Markley A, Shoben A, Kieves NR (2024) Evaluation of variability in performance and paw placement patterns by dogs completing the dog walk obstacle in an agility competition. PLoS ONE 19(3): e0299592. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299592
Levy M, Hall C, Trentacosta N, Percival M. A preliminary retrospective survey of injuries occurring in dogs participating in canine agility. Vet Comp Orthop Traumatol. 2009;22(4):321-324. doi:10.3415/VCOT-08-09-0089
Inkila L, Hyytiainen H, Hielm-Bjorkman A, Junnila J, Bergh A, Bostrom A. Part II of Finnish agility dog survey: Agility-related injuries and risk factors for injury in competition-level agility dogs. Animals 2022;12:227. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12030227.
Jimenez IA, Canapp SO, Percival ML. Internet-based survey evaluating the impact of ground substrate on injury and performance in canine agility athletes. Front Vet Sci. 2022;9:1025331. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.1025331.
Unpublished data; Survey details available here
Pechette Markley A, Shoben AB, Kieves NR. Internet-based survey of the frequency and types of orthopedic conditions and injuries experienced by dogs competing in agility. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2021;259:1001-1008 https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.259.9.1001
About the Authors
Dr. Arielle Pechette Markley is a board-certified Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Veterinarian and Director of Research at Red Sage Integrative Veterinary Partners. Her passion is sports medicine research, particularly risk factors for injury development, sport safety, and injury prevention. Her primary field of research is canine agility, and she has received grant funding for research on agility biomechanics, workload monitoring, and sensor development for quantification of agility activity. She is also heading studies on osteoarthritis and pain management, functional mobility in working dogs, and investigation into injuries in other dog sports. When not reading and writing journal articles, she can be found doing agility with her dog Jax, running, rock climbing and doing yoga. Her list of publications can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arielle-Markley-2
Dr. Abigail Shoben is a biostatistician in the College of Public Health at Ohio State. She has particular expertise in the design and analysis of clinical trials, particularly for clinical trials of behavioral interventions and trials with correlated data. She was appointed as a member of the FDA advisory committee on anesthetic and analgesic drug products in 2015 and served on that committee until 2024, taking part in more than 20 advisory committee meetings. For the past several years, she has enjoyed combining her out-of-work interest in dog sports, particularly dog agility, with her statistical expertise, lending biostatistical support to multiple projects, including those organized by the Agility Dog Health Network and AGility Innovations Leveraging Electronics (AGILE).
AGILE - AGility Innovations Leveraging Electronics
Agility handlers and trainers need a reliable, accurate way to measure and monitor athlete activity. Advances in human- and canine-wearable sensors provide new ways of accurately recognizing and measuring movement, and machine learning techniques can find patterns in movement data to perform activity recognition. Our goal is to develop a canine-wearable system to recognize agility activity so that we can measure canine training workload, speed, fatigue and other parameters to optimize performance, to evaluate the relation of training parameters and injury risk, and to study injury prevention strategies. Initial funding was provided by the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation.
The AGILE research team
Dr. Arielle Pechette Markley - Sports Medicine Veterinarian
Dr. Melody Moore Jackson - Computer scientist
Dr. Rachel Olson - Kinesiologist
Dr. Abigail Shoben - Biostatistician
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