Donald McCaig Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/2015/01/16/do-dog-athletes-get-dog-injuries/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Billadeau Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Okay, here is a good teaching moment on stats. This blog on the report indicated: "Agility dog handlers completed 1,627 surveys..." "... 529 dog handlers did report injuries..." The blog then goes on to detail the percentage of dogs injured by breed without indicating the confidence intervals on each precentage. Without the confidence intervals there is no way to know if the reported percentage of injured dogs within a breed is significantly different than the percentage of uninjured dogs. While the blog (and possibly the report) is leading the reader to conclude some breeds are more prone to injury the data is incomplete in being able to draw this conclusion. Additionally, surveys are often biased due to who will respond making the survey results not a random sample of the population. What percentage of the total agility dog population was sampled in this survey and is it enough for the survey results to be representative for the entire population? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Although anecdotal, many people involved with Agility, myself included, will tell you that their dogs have suffered far more non-Agility related injuries than Agility injuries. Maddie mysteriously cut her foot open in our yard and she tore up paw pads on every foot playing in a creek one time. She was never once injured in an Agility context, and I trained and ran her as an older dog! Dean messed up his hip playing ball in the yard, and then again a couple of years later when he twisted that leg under a boardwalk at the beach. A little while after that boardwalk incident, he did aggravate that injury doing weave poles, but the injury itself was not caused by anything in Agility. Tessa got a thorn in her foot in the yard last summer, and she got bit by a groundhog that she attacked several years ago. So far so good in Agility! Of course, Agility injuries happen. I don't think anyone would say that they don't. And wear and tear can have an impact over time, depending on the structure and fitness level of the dog, and how the handler chooses to run/train. But the vast majority of people involved in Agility will tell story after story about how their dog has been injured outside the Agility context far more than within that context. It's interesting. A lot of advancements have been made in the sport in the interest of safety (more spacing between weave poles, lower A-Frames, rubberized contacts, breakaway tire, shorter chute fabric, etc.) Everyday life . . . not always so safe!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurelin Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 It is interesting to me that the dog breeds most commonly injured also tend to be the ones that the 'more serious' folk seem to choose. Maybe they are more often injured because they are pushed further? I am not sure. I do agree though that in my experience with agility and dog sports most the injuries I've seen have been outside the agility ring. I do worry a bit more with Hank because he's so... reckless sometimes. I worry more about him flinging himself out of a tree or running head first into something while playing though. He seems to always be doing some sort of gravity defying stunt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Coyote Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 I never really thought agility look dangerous for the dogs just from watching it. The one that I didn't like was the flyball competition that I watched. Those dogs were running as fast as they could go and sliding at the end of the run. I thought at the time that there was no way i was letting one of my dogs do that. It just looked so dangerous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hooper Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 First of all, I think the graph is misleading. The x-axis is simply labeled "Percent", and shows 25 % of border collies as injured and about 16 % as uninjured. Since this doesn't add up to 100 %, it can't mean that 25 % of the border collies whose owners answered the survey were injured, and 16 % not, because that would leave nearly 60 % of the border collies in some other category besides injured or not injured. I think the graph means that of the total number of reported injured agility dogs 25 % of those were border collies. (If you add all the % of injured dogs for each breed together, that looks like it comes out to 100%. Well duh. Border collies make up a pretty big proportion of the total number of dogs running in agility, so it's hardly earth shattering that they make up a big proportion of the population of injured agility dogs. Overall, the graph looks like a pretty good representation of the proportion of different breeds running in agility - border collies, followed by aussies, shelties, and then a mish-mash of other breeds. So, ok, true (with the caveat that this is not a random sample, so only sorta-true) that border collies make up a bigger proportion of the injured category than they do the uninjured category by about 8 % but without seeing a Chi-square or some such test, I'm not convinced that these data mean much by way of breed comparison. On the other hand, I don't think that acute injuries are the main concern in agility. What I would like to see is some sort of comparison of some measure of arthritis in dogs that never competed in agility to dogs who earned something like an MX or the USDAA or NADAC equivalent, in dogs that are say 8, 10, and 12 years old. This is purely my speculation based on admittedly biased anecdotal observation, but I'd bet that one would see more senior agility dogs with joint issues than their non-agility counterparts. Just my speculation, but it sure seems to me like I see a lot more gimpy retired agility dogs than their comparably aged non-competing counterparts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Billadeau Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 First of all, I think the graph is misleading. The x-axis is simply labeled "Percent", and shows 25 % of border collies as injured and about 16 % as uninjured. I made that same mistake initally, but the precentage is of all the dogs reported; 25% of the reported dogs were Border Collies that had been injured while 16% of the dogs reported were uninjured Border Collies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwb3 Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 My border collie Cowboy tore a hind paw nail off clear to the meat working contact obsticles, trying to get a fast "target" on end contact zone. Not sure when it happened, did not see him tear it off. Lil guy kept working like nothing happened. Only the next morning did I notice him being a little ginger on one hind leg. I went to trim his nails, when I got to that nail. . .there was none. Took a few weeks off, couple weeks worth of crate rest, couple weeks more of leash work. Then his toe was healed up enough to get going again. Nail will "grow" back over time. First "sports" injury for Cowboy. I am guessing it will not be his last. He has a "cowabonga!" approach to everything he does. I think it was pretty painful for the first few days. But then not so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwb3 Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 I run Cowboy in Flyball. I have not seen any real bad injuries. Most common injuries are scuffed or cuts to paw pads. Teaching and insisting on good "swimmers turn" form on the box will keep most dogs from getting joint or muscle injuries even after years of active competing. I never really thought agility look dangerous for the dogs just from watching it. The one that I didn't like was the flyball competition that I watched. Those dogs were running as fast as they could go and sliding at the end of the run. I thought at the time that there was no way i was letting one of my dogs do that. It just looked so dangerous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingfisher7151 Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 I think Laurelin is right. The dogs getting injured are either the ones totally not built for such a sport, or the "serious" breeds that people over campaign. The border collies are particularly good at doing something because it's fun, or their handler said to, and completely ignoring the fact that it might hurt. I think these dogs are so easy to injure because they just don't quit. My 10 month old dog would HAPPILY come on a 10 mile bike ride, and without proper knowledge it would be so easy to say "He loves it! It's totally fine for him!". Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. But agility/flyball/diskdog/etc. definitely put wear and tear on joints that may not have had that in any other context. But daily activities dangerous too. I think it's a "pick your poison" kind of life. While I do not do sports (yet), it seems to me that proper technique and reasonable expectations would greatly improve the chances of a dog not being injured. I'm happy to see some people lowering jump heights for training. Dogs, like horses, only have so many jumps in them. It seems silly to push them at 110% all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam Wolf Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 Talking with Dr. rob Gillette once time he said he decided to go into canine sports medicine after watching high school football players. these guys would get injured, WANT to get right back into the game and simply ask to be taped up or such so they could. he noticed that in some things dogs were much the same, they WANTED to do something and since the dogs were not getting forced to do things the situation was similar. so He essentially started sports medicine for dogs. At the time he went to vet school there really was no sports medicine for dogs. His work and others has helped with rehabilitation of injuries and ways to help prevent them. It would be interesting to see a chart for injuries related to stock work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d112358 Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 Okay, here is a good teaching moment on stats. This blog on the report indicated: "Agility dog handlers completed 1,627 surveys..." "... 529 dog handlers did report injuries..." The blog then goes on to detail the percentage of dogs injured by breed without indicating the confidence intervals on each precentage. Without the confidence intervals there is no way to know if the reported percentage of injured dogs within a breed is significantly different than the percentage of uninjured dogs. While the blog (and possibly the report) is leading the reader to conclude some breeds are more prone to injury the data is incomplete in being able to draw this conclusion. Additionally, surveys are often biased due to who will respond making the survey results not a random sample of the population. What percentage of the total agility dog population was sampled in this survey and is it enough for the survey results to be representative for the entire population? They're showing total percentages - with that and your total N of 1627 surveys, assuming for border collie it looks about 26% injured and 17% uninjured, I can already tell you that's a significant difference. But for completeness sake, here we go: ~423 injured ~277 uninjured So of the border collies alone (700 dogs), 60% are injured (exact CI 57-64%). Normal approximation to the binomial will provide a very similar answer, since N is large and p isn't close to 0 or 1. Let's compare that to Aussies, about 11% injured and 14% uninjured: ~179 injured ~228 uninjured Of the Aussies (407 dogs), 44% are injured (exact CI 39-49%). This is quite clearly different than the border collies (p<0.0001 with chi-squared or fisher's). Now I'm not speaking to limitations of the study, but as long as you have an N with your reported percentages you can make inference pretty easily. If you prefer social scientist-style stats, the margin of error in percentage points for something with a sample size of 1627 and a very large population size (~40 million) is about 2.5% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mum24dog Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 As previously mentioned, the results of a self reported survey are bound to be suspect. And how does one isolate cause and effect? Is the non agility injury a result of the dog's agility activity? Or maybe the agility injury is a result of the dog's everyday life or other sports in which it takes part. Or any combination of the two, or mix of all sorts of factors. The most serious injury to any of our club dogs in the last year was a spinal injury suffered by a collie while running on the beach. Could agility have caused a weakness? Possibly, but he has never been trained or worked hard. If they want to do well in agility, people choose the sorts of dogs that are likely to be accident prone whatever they do in life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donald McCaig Posted January 23, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 Dear Doggers, My guess: from most injured Border Collies to least: 1. Frisbee 2. Cattledogging 3. Flyball 4. Sheepdogging 5. Agility 6. S&R 7.Companion dogs 8. Obedience That said: Border Collies focus like lasers. I once had a sound intelligent dog collide with a large tree, full tilt, because he was concentrating on his sheep and One of Carol Benjamin's Border Collies had serious joint problems after kids found out how much he loved to retrieve a ball. In general, I think well bred Border Collies are accidents that haven't happened. Today. Donald McCaig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mum24dog Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 The contorted head position favoured by UK obedience competitors can cause neck problems so not even Obedience is a safe option. I think that list is probably not far wrong as to relative risks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcv-border Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 The contorted head position favoured by UK obedience competitors can cause neck problems so not even Obedience is a safe option. I have always thought that position was wrong, wrong, wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sekah Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 I think flyball is supposed to be safer than agility. Granted, I don't think it's something that can be accurately measured. The idea is that flyball is always the same, predictable movement: jump 4 7-8" jumps, grab a ball, 4 more jumps then tug. With a smooth swimmer's turn, it's minimal wear on the body. Whereas in agility, the courses vary, the obstacles vary, handlers can cue late, the jumps are higher -- there's more that can go wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcv-border Posted January 23, 2015 Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 I think flyball is supposed to be safer than agility. Granted, I don't think it's something that can be accurately measured. The idea is that flyball is always the same, predictable movement: jump 4 7-8" jumps, grab a ball, 4 more jumps then tug. With a smooth swimmer's turn, it's minimal wear on the body. Whereas in agility, the courses vary, the obstacles vary, handlers can cue late, the jumps are higher -- there's more that can go wrong. I agree that flyball is more predictable, but my rehab vet says she sees a lot of flyball dogs with shoulder injuries - from the stress of hitting the box and turning. Is it because the dogs have not been taught the correct mechanics of the turn, or is it just the natural outcome of hitting the box repeatedly (practice) and at a fast speed? IDK. But she definitely counseled me NOT to try flyball when I asked her about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz P Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 Frisbee and Flyball would be the top sports for injuries. Lots of shoulder, carpus, back and neck injuries for both of those. Aside from obedience, I hear about more injuries in dogs that compete in sports than in those that work stock. Working cattle is more dangerous than working sheep, but I've known dogs badly hurt by rams and ewes alike. Border Collies seem to lack much sense of self preservation. They can kill themselves just playing in the yard. I've hard dogs run into fences and fence posts, jump off cliffs, run into brick walls, fall into rivers... You don't need work or a sport for them to get hurt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mum24dog Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 I have always thought that position was wrong, wrong, wrong. Nothing in the rules that says it has to be done that way and I certainly won't be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam Wolf Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 As far as having a dog walk in an abnormal position for any sport, one does not have to follow the 'norm'. Sure you may loose some points simply because it isn't the same as others, but in the long run you will have a dog with less injuries and probably a happier dog for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mum24dog Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 As far as having a dog walk in an abnormal position for any sport, one does not have to follow the 'norm'. Sure you may loose some points simply because it isn't the same as others, but in the long run you will have a dog with less injuries and probably a happier dog for it. I had to read that several times to realise that you weren't talking about dog walks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurelin Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 My cattle dog x terrier thing is one of those dogs that lacks self preservation in general. He flings himself into agility full speed but so far the big scares have been when he's just playing. He's gone headfirst into walls, furniture, trees, jumped off 7' ledges without a thought, and even ran head first into another dog (a beagle of all things) while they were playing chase. Ended up doing a somersault and coming up on 3 legs. This dog will be the death of me, I swear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonetotervs Posted January 24, 2015 Report Share Posted January 24, 2015 With all due respect, I'd argue that a listing of Injury-prone sports gives some information, but another question I'd prefer to have asked is whether dogs engaged in competitive/work activity have better health and longevity than dogs not so engaged. Most farm and sports and police/military dogs are not overweight, get checked out for abnormalities on a daily basis, and are given both mental and physical exercise. I'd argue that skiing is a riskier sport than jogging, but both types of athletes are apt to look after themselves more than non-athletes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam Wolf Posted January 25, 2015 Report Share Posted January 25, 2015 I do see skinny agility dogs, but many lack good muscling on them which can lead to injury. this may just be my area Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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