[Comparative Biomechanics of Canine Agility]

Agility is a sport in which dogs compete on an obstacle course for both accuracy and time. Dogs that participate in competitions must negotiate a complex course of approximately 20 obstacles. We describe a literature review of the biomechanics of canine agility and our preliminary results. The number of articles that have reported biomechanics of canine agility has gradually increased since 2010. Most previous studies have focused on the bar jump, which is a basic obstacle to agility. In our preliminary study, we investigated the roll motion of the head and trunk using inertial sensors for Border Collies that completed weave poles (obstacles in which dogs weave through approximately 10 poles placed 0.6 m apart in a straight line). The roll angles of the head and trunk were measured based on the angular velocity and linear acceleration data using a sensor fusion algorithm. The head and trunk rotated about the roll axis nearly in unison. The roll amplitude of the head was lower than that of the trunk. We discuss the importance of biomechanical studies on canine agility to gain a deeper understanding of mammalian quadrupedal locomotion.