A listener wrote in asking for advice on planning their first long-distance trip to a major event, and the three of us had a lot to say. We talk through how dogs and humans experience the same travel day differently, whether you're better off with fewer long driving days or more shorter ones, and whether it's worth stopping to practice along the way. If you've got a big trip on the horizon, this one's for you.

• How dogs and humans experience the same travel day differently, and why that matters for planning
• The case for fewer, longer driving days versus more days with shorter drives
• Whether stopping to practice agility en route is worth the added planning
• Practical considerations that often get overlooked by first-time travelers

• Canine Handler Fitness

In this episode, Jennifer, Sarah, and Esteban address a question from a listener who felt overwhelmed at a big event under the bright lights of the cameras and the importance of the moment. The team shares their own experiences competing on live televised finals and dig into what the research says about choking under pressure and the techniques that actually help.

• Why pre-performance routines matter and how to use them strategically
• How post-performance processing routines can also impact high stakes performance
• How to handle it when your routine gets disrupted before a run
• Four research backed techniques for overcoming choking under pressure

• Why we choke under pressure — and how to avoid it | Sian Leah Beilock
• Episode 357: Preparation Checklist for Big Events
• Episode 188: Handler Desensitization
• Watch Rebecca "feel her own power"

• Canine Handler Fitness

Sarah and Jennifer tackle a listener question about timing: when is the right moment to add a puppy to your pack, and how will it affect your relationship with your current competition dog? They share their own histories with bringing in new dogs and talk through what they'd recommend.

• The age range for your current competition dog that Sarah and Jennifer think makes for the smoothest puppy transition
• What to expect (and what not to worry about) when it comes to your older dog's relationship with you after a puppy arrives
• Whether having an older dog around really helps a puppy learn, and the downside most people don't consider

• Canine Handler Fitness

In this episode, Sarah and Esteban welcome Dr. Arielle Pechette Markley and Dr. Abigail Shoben to discuss their CARIS research update analyzing data from 1,385 trials and over 300,000 runs per obstacle. They break down the findings from the largest coordinated safety study in agility history on contact obstacle incidents and what the numbers actually mean for handlers and dogs.

• The actual incident rates by obstacle: dogwalk leads at 2.1 per 1,000 runs, followed by teeter (1.04) and A-frame (0.40)
• Why 91.5% of contact incidents result in no apparent injury, with actual injury rates as low as 1 in 33,000 runs for dogwalks
• How these prospective findings compare to previous retrospective studies and why the methodology matters for interpreting risk
• Which agility obstacle has a much higher incident rate than any of the contact obstacles

• The CARIS Research Update everyone is talking about: https://www.caninesportsscience.org/post/caris-research-update-what-we-re-learning-about-contact-obstacle-incidents.
• The "speed study": Increasing course speeds in canine agility: a decade of trends from American Kennel Club competition data

• Canine Handler Fitness

The AKC International Sweepstakes Class launched mid-2023, bringing European-style FCI course design to AKC trials at three levels of difficulty. Now, with two full years of data in hand, Sarah takes a deep dive into the numbers to see where the program stands and what the trends might tell us about where it's headed.

• How ISC entries compare to overall AKC participation, and what the 2024 vs. 2025 growth numbers actually look like
• Why big dogs dominate ISC entries, and how the 20″ and 24″ height classes compare to their share of the broader AKC entry pool
• What the shift away from Level 1 toward Levels 2 and 3 suggests about who is running ISC and how the competitor base is maturing

• Episode 323: The Past, Present, and Future of AKC ISC
• Episode 351: The Inaugural AKC ISC Championship

• Canine Handler Fitness

Jennifer, Sarah, and Esteban are joined by Chris Durkee of 4 Legged Flix to talk about Video Assisted Review (VAR), a technology now being used at the highest levels of agility competition in the United States. VAR was deployed at both the recent AKC National Agility Championship and the UKI Invitational, with video services provided by 4 Legged Flix.

• Why contact obstacle judging is so difficult
• How VAR works and what triggers a review
• How judges interacted with VAR and whether it affected their confidence or decision-making
• Whether VAR more often adds faults that were missed or overturns faults that were incorrectly called
• What events may adopt VAR going forward

• Episode 151: Judging with Video Review

• Canine Handler Fitness

Esteban, Sarah, and Jennifer share personal experiences and unpack the common stereotypes around male and female dogs in agility. With Esteban running girls, Sarah running boys, and Jennifer having trained both, the trio brings a range of perspectives and lands in the same place: the sex of a dog matters a lot less than people think.

• Why Esteban, Sarah, and Jennifer each gravitate toward (or away from) a particular sex and what actually drove those choices
• The most common stereotypes about male vs. female dogs in agility, and how much truth the three coaches find in them
• Why limiting your puppy search by sex may cause you to overlook the dog that could be your best partner yet
• How other factors like temperament, drive, relationship, and timing outweigh sex when it comes to finding and developing a great agility dog

• Canine Handler Fitness
• Saint Rocco's Treats

In this episode, Esteban, Sarah, and Jennifer sit down with Peter Wirth, the handler of that amazing Corgi, 8″ National Champion Welly. We also discuss the challenges of this year's courses, including the low Q rates, multiple falls off the dogwalk, and the weave pole challenge that eliminated half the Finals field.

• What Peter and Jennifer thought about the high number of weave pole faults in the Finals
• What the Q rates were in both Prelims and Finals and what they tell us
• What this year's NAC might signal about the future direction of course design

• Hammy the Corgi as a Potato
• Episode 379: The Medium-Speed Dog's Guide to NAC

Does the difference between 4-foot and 5-foot bars really matter in dog agility? In this episode, we dig into how bar width impacts everything from course design to your dog's performance, and why this seemingly small difference can have bigger implications than you might think.

• How 4-foot vs 5-foot bars affect course design and handling decisions
• Whether bar width changes your dog's jumping mechanics and consistency
• Why Jennifer and Esteban don't like opening a course with a tire followed immediately by the dogwalk

• Episode 129: The Connection Paradigm

• Canine Handler Fitness

In this episode, Sarah, Jennifer, and Esteban explore what a dog agility series on Netflix or another streaming platform could look like. They discuss several possible formats and why agility has the ingredients for mainstream success.

• Different formats a dog agility series could take on a streaming platform
• The kinds of stories and personalities that would make the sport compelling for a wider audience
• Why dog agility has strong potential as a binge-worthy series
• What makes the sport visually exciting and emotionally engaging for viewers

• A Different Breed: a docuseries on Amazon Prime
• Race for the Crown

• Canine Handler Fitness