diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 5bad5e497c..f39624b317 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -124,6 +124,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "jsonwebtoken",
  "labels",
  "lazy_static",
+ "log",
  "md5",
  "models",
  "ops",
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index f7aa5b2dc6..c1b96f0b35 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -81,6 +81,7 @@ librocksdb-sys = { version = "0.16.0", default-features = false, features = [
     "snappy",
     "rtti",
 ] }
+log = "0.4" # only used to configure logging of dependencies
 lz4 = "1.24.0"
 lz4_flex = "0.11.0"
 mime = "0.3"
diff --git a/crates/agent/Cargo.toml b/crates/agent/Cargo.toml
index dd7e7ec103..3013d36cf4 100644
--- a/crates/agent/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/agent/Cargo.toml
@@ -46,6 +46,7 @@ humantime-serde = { workspace = true }
 itertools = { workspace = true }
 jsonwebtoken = { workspace = true }
 lazy_static = { workspace = true }
+log = { workspace = true }
 rand = { workspace = true }
 regex = { workspace = true }
 reqwest = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/crates/agent/src/main.rs b/crates/agent/src/main.rs
index aef6b40ef5..6b03a3852e 100644
--- a/crates/agent/src/main.rs
+++ b/crates/agent/src/main.rs
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ use clap::Parser;
 use derivative::Derivative;
 use futures::FutureExt;
 use rand::Rng;
+use sqlx::{ConnectOptions, Connection};
 
 /// Agent is a daemon which runs server-side tasks of the Flow control-plane.
 #[derive(Derivative, Parser)]
@@ -96,12 +97,15 @@ async fn async_main(args: Args) -> Result<(), anyhow::Error> {
         .into_string()
         .expect("os path must be utf8");
 
+    // The HOSTNAME variable will be set to the name of the pod in k8s
+    let application_name = std::env::var("HOSTNAME").unwrap_or_else(|_| "agent".to_string());
     let mut pg_options = args
         .database_url
         .as_str()
         .parse::<sqlx::postgres::PgConnectOptions>()
         .context("parsing database URL")?
-        .application_name("agent");
+        .application_name(&application_name);
+    pg_options.log_slow_statements(log::LevelFilter::Warn, std::time::Duration::from_secs(10));
 
     // If a database CA was provided, require that we use TLS with full cert verification.
     if let Some(ca) = &args.database_ca {
@@ -113,10 +117,42 @@ async fn async_main(args: Args) -> Result<(), anyhow::Error> {
         pg_options = pg_options.ssl_mode(sqlx::postgres::PgSslMode::Prefer);
     }
 
-    let pg_pool = sqlx::postgres::PgPool::connect_with(pg_options)
+    let pg_pool = sqlx::postgres::PgPoolOptions::new()
+            .acquire_timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(5))
+            .after_release(|conn, meta| {
+                let fut = async move {
+                    let r =tokio::time::timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(5), async {
+                                        conn.ping()
+                                    });
+                    if let Err(err) = r.await {
+                        tracing::warn!(error = ?err, conn_meta = ?meta, "connection was put back in a bad state, removing from the pool");
+                        Ok(false)
+                    } else {
+                        Ok(true) // connection is good
+                    }
+                };
+                fut.boxed()
+            })
+            .connect_with(pg_options)
         .await
         .context("connecting to database")?;
 
+    // Periodically log information about the connection pool to aid in debugging.
+    let pool_copy = pg_pool.clone();
+    tokio::spawn(async move {
+        let mut interval = tokio::time::interval(std::time::Duration::from_secs(120));
+        loop {
+            interval.tick().await;
+            let total_connections = pool_copy.size();
+            let idle_connections = pool_copy.num_idle();
+            tracing::info!(
+                total_connections,
+                idle_connections,
+                "db connection pool stats"
+            );
+        }
+    });
+
     let system_user_id = agent_sql::get_user_id_for_email(&args.accounts_email, &pg_pool)
         .await
         .context("querying for agent user id")?;