We’re Back
Happy New Year! We hope 2026 is off to a great start for you. After a short break and some much needed family time, the Wednesday Wrap Up and the podcast are officially back.
PODCAST: Wait Your Turn
I just finished taping the first podcast of 2026 with Jennifer and Sarah, and I realized I still had more thoughts about the topic. As the conversation unfolded, I found myself wondering: what does “waiting” even mean to a dog? You can listen to the podcast HERE: Episode 377: Wait Your Turn. Subscribe on iTunes, Follow on Spotify.
In agility, there is a lot of time that does not involve running. Dogs wait in crates. They wait ringside. They wait while other dogs run. They wait while handlers talk, watch, worry, and plan. Most handlers think of waiting as the period after the dog comes out of the crate but before entering the ring. From the dog’s perspective, that definition may not make much sense at all.
Waiting is a distinctly human concept. Dogs are almost never doing nothing. They are anticipating, disengaging, regulating, scanning, resting, or enjoying themselves. Some dogs anticipate early and stay there too long, which can tip into anxiety. Others switch on and off easily and seem unaffected by long gaps. Many handlers try to manipulate waiting by making it shorter or longer, calmer or more exciting, more structured or more casual.
My own view is that most of the time between runs is not waiting at all. Ideally, dogs are resting, relaxing, or genuinely enjoying themselves, whether that is in a crate or interacting calmly with canine and human friends. Then there is a clear shift into a warm up period that is both mental and physical, followed by peak performance, a reward ritual, and an intentional warm down. Waiting, as I define it, ends as soon as the dog understands that the long behavior chain that predictably leads to a run has started.
On the science side, there is limited research specifically on dogs’ subjective experience of waiting, but related work in animal cognition suggests that dogs do not represent time the way humans do. Studies on temporal cognition and delay of gratification in dogs show that they respond more to cues, routines, and emotional states than to abstract duration. Research by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz and others on canine cognition supports the idea that dogs experience life as sequences of events rather than a queued timeline.
When handlers recognize how much waiting their dog is being asked to do, and stop assuming the dog experiences that time the same way they do, they can make better choices about management, timing, arousal, and recovery. That awareness alone can pay real dividends for the handler dog team.
Sidebar, courtesy of Sarah: thanks to our daughter Hannah, we cannot hear the word “wait” without thinking of the Fortnite emote and TikTok trend she does so often:
NAC Prep
Sarah here!
The NAC Prep Course has been around for 13 years, and every year we see the same thing: more finalists using it to prepare smarter and walk into Nationals with confidence.
This course gives you clear intel on the judges, plus exercises built from real courses they’ve already designed, so you’re not caught off guard. You’ll also get a practical, easy-to-use visualization framework to help you mentally rehearse your runs, because preparation isn’t just about what you train, it’s about how you show up.
Even if Nationals isn’t on your calendar, the skills in this course translate directly to better handling, better decision-making, and better performances everywhere. Join me, Jenn, and Esteban and set yourself up for a strong start to 2026.
https://baddogagilityacademy.com/join-the-2026-nationals-prep-course/
Westminster LIVE
This Saturday is one of my favorite days in dog agility, and nothing is keeping Jennifer Crank away from it.
“Now isn’t this what it’s all about, folks?!”
If you know the clip, you know why it fits. Daniel LaRusso is going to fight, and Jennifer is back in the agility ring at Westminster after welcoming her second child, Savannah, in October 2025. Jennifer has won both her height and the overall championship at Westminster multiple times.
The 150th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show features the Masters Agility Championship this Saturday, January 31, 2026, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. Jennifer will be there in person for this premier event.
The day includes preliminary rounds, followed by the championship finals that same evening. The competition features Standard and Jumpers with Weaves classes, with all the classic obstacles including the A frame, dog walk, seesaw, and tunnels, and the very best agility dogs in the country.
The 13th Annual Masters Agility Championship Finals will be broadcast live on FOX Sports on Saturday, January 31 at 4:30 PM Eastern. You can find the full viewing schedule here: https://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/viewing-schedule/
Tickets are required to attend in person, and daytime preliminary tickets and evening finals tickets are sold separately, with evening sessions limited in availability according to The Westminster Kennel Club.
I say this every year. I love the live finals. They add so much to both the broadcast and the competition itself, and they stand in sharp contrast to the edited, polished versions we see later on ESPN. There is no smoothing it out and no fixing it in post. What happens happens, and that is exactly what makes it special.
Enjoy the show, cheer loudly from wherever you are, and welcome Jennifer back where she belongs.
What We’re Watching
We’ve been watching Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney+ with Hannah, which has been a lot of fun. The series is based on the books by Rick Riordan, which we’ve both really enjoyed, and thankfully this adaptation has done a much better job than the 2010 movie attempt that completely changed the plot and missed the heart of the story. If you’re familiar with the books, this version feels far more faithful and enjoyable.
My current guilty pleasure, though, has been Landman. Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, and the entire cast have been outstanding. For those of you watching, I’ll add that Sarah’s entire family attended TCU, though Sarah went to Rice. My roommate at Rice, who was also the best man at our wedding, is an engineer who works for Halliburton, a major player in the oil industry. That made it especially fascinating to hear different perspectives while watching the show, since it really captures how everything intersects around oil, from mega rich owners to the men living in camps and working the wells, to local politics and Texas culture.
Fair warning, Landman is rated MA for mature audiences. But at its core, the series is very much about family. It highlights both the good and the bad in a way that still makes you root for the lead characters, which feels refreshing compared to the trend of shows where everyone is awful or irredeemable. In many ways, it’s an underdog story.
And finally, guess what comes out tomorrow? Yes, my other guilty pleasure, Bridgerton. I won’t say anything else about it, but I’ve enjoyed every season so far.
Going to Westminster? Good luck and tell me all about it later in your email to me at team@baddogagility.com.
Happy Training,
