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TED Talks Daily

How to communicate with your dog, from a Westminster champion | Jennifer Crank

with Jennifer Crank

Published November 19, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Host Elise Hugh introduces a TED Talk by dog agility competitor Jennifer Crank, who demonstrates an agility course with her border collie High Five and explains how the sport depends on precise interspecies communication. Crank describes the structure and difficulty of modern dog agility, the six primary cues handlers use, and why dogs respond most naturally to motion and body position rather than voice commands. She then connects these lessons to human relationships, emphasizing clarity, timing, consistency, and trust in any form of communication or leadership.

Topics Covered

Communication skills Relationships Leadership and management Personal Development Team culture Parenting and child development Dog training Dog agility Interspecies communication

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Dog agility is less about teaching obstacles and more about building a refined, high-speed communication system between human and dog.
  • Dogs naturally respond to motion, position, and eye contact more than to verbal commands or hand signals.
  • Conflicting or late cues from the handler-not the dog-are often the real source of errors on an agility course.
  • Effective handlers tailor their training style to each individual dog's temperament, strengths, and fears.
  • Lessons from interspecies teamwork apply directly to leading teams and relationships: speak others' language, be clear and consistent, and build trust.
  • The best communication creates enough trust that a partner is willing to "run full speed into the unknown" with you.

Podcast Notes

Podcast introduction and framing of the talk

Host introduces TED Talks Daily and herself

Elise Hugh welcomes listeners to TED Talks Daily, describing it as bringing new ideas to spark curiosity every day.[2:39]
She identifies herself as the host, Elise Hugh.[2:41]

Framing question: what dogs can teach about leadership and teamwork

Elise asks what dogs have to teach us about leadership and teamwork.[2:45]
She notes that dogs have arrived on the TED stage to show the audience what they can teach.[2:47]

Setting the stage and introducing Jennifer Crank and High Five

Description of the agility course setup on the TED stage

The stage has been transformed into an agility course with green turf.[2:53]
The course includes hoops to jump through and poles to weave through and jump over.[2:56]

Introduction of Jennifer Crank and the focus of her talk

Elise explains that the setup is so that Jennifer Crank, a world champion in dog agility competitions, can demonstrate the art of interspecies teamwork.[3:00]
She summarizes that Jennifer will reveal how coaching across species can reshape how we think about communication and connection.[3:11]
Elise notes that the talk reminds us that our greatest teachers can walk on two legs or four.[3:17]

Jennifer's opening admission about team focus

Jennifer says she has been competing in dog agility since she was six years old.[3:20]
She shares that she has had a lot of time to accept a hard truth: she is not the part of the team that most people are concerned about.[3:26]
She notes that people just want to meet her teammate, and she decides to start by introducing that teammate.[3:33]

Introducing High Five on stage

Jennifer gives the cue "High five. Good girl. Sit." to her dog.[3:49]
Elise's narration clarifies that High Five is an adorable black and white border collie who has just bounded onto the stage.[3:44]
Elise notes that Jennifer starts to give High Five commands, and the audience watches her begin to run through the course flawlessly.[3:49]
Elise points out that there are several moments in the talk where High Five does drills on stage and encourages those who can to watch the video.[3:56]

Live command sequence demonstration

Jennifer hypes up High Five with "Are you ready? Are you ready? Okay." before starting the sequence.[4:01]
She rapidly cues obstacles: "Wrap, wrap. Tire. Weave. Weave. Yes. Good girl. Weave. Weave. Tunnel. Tunnel. Loop. Loop. Tunnel. Tunnel. Weave. Weave. Weave. Weave. Get it. Get it. Get it. Get it."[4:10]
The rapid cueing illustrates the speed and complexity of on-course communication between handler and dog.[3:53]

Dog agility as a modern sport and career

From backyard hobby to serious global competition

Jennifer explains that dog agility started as a backyard hobby.[4:26]
She states that it has evolved into a serious global competition.[4:26]
For many people, including herself, the sport has become a full-time career.[4:33]

Jennifer's dogs and training routine

High Five is one of many dogs Jennifer competes with.[4:37]
She lists her other dogs: Surprise (High Five's niece, also a border collie), Bee and Rio (both Shetland Sheepdogs), and her youngest, Skittles (a mixed breed).[4:40]
Jennifer notes that like most professional athletes, they train year-round.[4:50]
On average, they train four to five days a week.[4:50]
She mentions they train in a giant air-conditioned arena with AstroTurf.[4:56]

Course specifications and competition goals

At a proper competition, there are 18 to 22 obstacles.[5:00]
The course area is approximately 10,000 to 12,000 square feet.[5:00]
The goal is to run the obstacles in order, make no mistakes, and be faster than any competitors.[5:09]
Jennifer acknowledges that this sounds simple, but she quickly introduces the complicating factor.[5:16]

Constantly changing courses and massive variability

Jennifer explains that every course is different and that the judge almost never reuses the same course twice.[5:23]
She states that this variability results in a possible 6.4 quadrillion different courses.[5:27]
Handlers do not know the course until the day of the event.[5:36]
The human handler gets only eight minutes to study, memorize, and prepare to run the course at full speed.[5:40]
She emphasizes that one mistake is enough for the win to slip away.[5:49]

What people think is hard vs. what is actually hard

Jennifer notes that people often think the hardest part is teaching the dog to jump through a hoop or climb over a teeter-totter.[5:55]
She counters that this equipment training is actually easy because equipment specifications are standardized.[6:05]
Once dogs learn the equipment, they know how to perform it reliably.[6:08]
At the highest levels of competition, she says dogs rarely make mistakes on the equipment itself.[6:12]
Therefore, the difference between winning and losing comes down to speed.[6:17]

Precision timing and measuring speed

Jennifer compares agility timing to sports like F1, NASCAR, or Olympic skiing.[6:25]
Judges use laser sensors and video playback to determine the winner because margins are so small.[6:25]
At the Agility World Championship in Belgium, time was measured to the 1/100th of a second.[6:31]
Despite that precision, there was still a tie for the gold medal.[6:38]
Jennifer concludes that the real challenge lies in interspecies communication, not equipment performance.[6:42]

Interspecies communication and primary cues

Defining the core communication challenge

Jennifer describes the sport as being about communication and connection.[7:02]
She frames agility as building a system of signals, timing, and trust so refined that dogs can run full speed and make decisions in milliseconds.[6:49]
Dogs make these rapid decisions based solely on the information the handler provides.[6:55]
She emphasizes that learning to communicate with her dog, not just to her dog, has been the most important lesson of her career.[7:12]

Human default vs. dog-natural communication

In the beginning, Jennifer used to holler commands and point at obstacles, relying on voice and hands like typical human communication.[7:27]
She notes that this style is natural for humans but not for dogs.[7:57]
If she wants her dog to run with passion, power, and precision, she must learn the dog's language.[7:36]

Six primary cues in agility communication

Jennifer lists six primary cues handlers can use: hand signal, verbal, shoulder position, eye contact, motion, and location.[7:49]
Humans tend to default to hand signals and voice.[7:57]
She explains that hand signals and voice are unnatural cues for dogs because they are not familiar with them at birth.[8:02]
The most natural cues for dogs are motion, location, shoulders, and eye contact.[8:07]
Jennifer says these natural cues are understood even by puppies.[8:07]

Puppy example illustrating natural vs trained cues

Jennifer describes setting down an eight-week-old puppy and then taking off running.[8:17]
• In this scenario, the puppy instinctively chases her when she runs.
• When she stops, the puppy also stops, demonstrating motion-based communication.
She calls this emotion-based communication very innate and instinctual.[8:26]
In contrast, if she looks at the same eight-week-old puppy and says "sit" or "stay," the puppy does not understand unless those cues have been trained.[8:36]
She asks the audience to imagine trying to run a dog full speed through a complex course using the least natural signals for the dog.[8:42]
She notes this is risky because it may cause the dog to stop, check in, and question where to go or what cues mean, which undermines speed.[8:02]

Relying on natural cues over voice and hand signals

Jennifer tells her students she could have laryngitis and both arms in a sling and still run an agility course.[9:03]
Her point is that she does not want to rely on the dog's least natural cues of verbal and hand signal.[9:11]
Instead, she wants to focus on what her dog understands best: natural uses of motion.[9:17]

Course examples illustrating motion-based communication

Straight-line speed example

Jennifer explains that in one demonstration, she was looking for High Five to run a straight line at very fast speed.[9:26]
• She wanted High Five to go down the line taking as few strides as possible.
Jennifer did not want High Five checking in with her or questioning their direction.[8:56]
To communicate this, Jennifer kept her own motion running in that direction and maintained forward speed.[9:44]

Judge-designed traps and changing the dog's line

As levels get more difficult, judges place traps and challenges to trick the dog into what seems like the natural path.[9:58]
Jennifer describes a judge placing an obstacle very obviously on the dog's line to lure them.[8:56]
She sets up a second example where she will start at the tire but will not ask for the tunnel afterward.[9:08]
She notes that she is not going to holler High Five's name or scream anything frantic.[8:58]
Instead, she wants to see if the dog can respond solely by watching her motion.[9:17]
Jennifer's goal is for High Five to turn after the jump and go to the weave poles instead of going straight into the tunnel.[10:16]
• She notes that the tunnel is the dog's favorite obstacle and the one they just used, making it more tempting.
To cue the turn, Jennifer must change her handling and communication in a way that High Five understands.[9:17]
As High Five approached the jump, Jennifer decelerated and turned to signal that the dog should decelerate and turn.[10:25]
She notes that if she wanted High Five to continue straight as before, she would have kept doing the same thing with her motion.[9:44]
The example illustrates how handlers cue very clearly what they want the dog to do through body movement.[9:48]

Need for unambiguous communication and avoiding conflicting cues

Jennifer states that dogs want unambiguous communication with very clear signals.[9:48]
She warns against presenting conflicting information, such as when the handler's body says one thing and verbal cues say something else.[9:11]
At the speeds dogs are traveling, they have no time to stop and ask for clarification.[10:11]
They must make a choice and will often follow what is most natural to them, typically motion-based information.[10:07]

Reviewing performance, timing, and navigation metaphors

Reviewing training sessions to identify handler errors

Jennifer explains that she records almost every training session.[10:18]
If there are any mistakes, she goes back and watches the video.[10:28]
Most of the time, she finds that the error was hers: a poor signal, a late command, or confusion caused by something she did.[10:11]

Driver and navigator analogy

Jennifer tells her students she often uses driving metaphors.[9:54]
She describes the dog as the driver in the driver's seat running the course.[9:44]
She positions herself as the navigator who just lets the dog know where to go.[10:35]

Freeway exit example for timing cues

Jennifer asks listeners to imagine going down the freeway at 70 miles an hour in the left-hand lane and suddenly realizing, "Oh, this is our exit."[10:11]
She notes that you cannot safely swerve across traffic at the last second to get off.[10:50]
Similarly, it is her job to communicate to the dog where they are going and to do so in a timely manner.[11:27]
She also does not want to be so early that the dog metaphorically moves into the right-hand lane behind a line of semis, costing time.[12:06]
This metaphor illustrates that cues must be neither too late nor excessively early to maintain speed and efficiency.[11:19]

Connection, knowing your teammate, and tailoring training

Agility as a team sport based on connection

Jennifer stresses that agility is a team sport, not a solo act.[11:24]
She reiterates that it is all about communication and connection.[11:05]
She says the best runs happen when there is a real connection between dog and handler.[12:36]
It is not just about watching the dog on course; it involves actually making eye contact.[11:58]
Jennifer notes that she will never be caught running an agility course in sunglasses because they interfere with eye contact.[11:58]

Knowing your teammate's tendencies and needs

She says the best teams are those who understand each other.[11:16]
Knowing a teammate's tendencies, strengths, weaknesses, and fears allows her to meet the dog halfway.[11:44]
This knowledge lets her adjust and tailor every training session to each dog.[11:34]
She tells her students to "train the dog you were given."[11:54]

Individual differences among her dogs

Jennifer explains that all her dogs are a little different.[11:19]
She says Surprise has no problem doing drills a hundred times over and over again at full speed.[12:20]
High Five, by contrast, is more of a perfectionist.[13:19]
• If there are too many mistakes or too many repetitions, High Five starts to worry she has done something wrong.
• When worried, High Five has to go slower, affecting performance.
Because of these differences, Jennifer adjusts her approach based on what each dog needs and how they communicate.[13:33]

Emphasis on enjoyment and voluntary participation

Jennifer aims to build a relationship where her dogs do agility because they want to, not because they have to.[13:37]
She acknowledges that she will put them in high-pressure situations and wants them to have a good time out there.[13:43]

Extending agility lessons to human communication and leadership

Relevance of agility communication to everyday life

Jennifer anticipates that listeners might wonder what this has to do with them.[13:41]
She says agility has taught her that communicating with dogs is not all that different from communicating with humans.[13:53]
She asserts that the same questions apply whether raising a child, leading a team at work, or arguing with a spouse.[14:01]

Key self-reflective communication questions

Jennifer poses several questions: "Am I speaking their language? Am I communicating in a clear way? Am I being consistent?"[14:07]
She asks whether we are trying to understand others or just trying to control them.[14:15]

What makes someone a good communicator

Agility has taught her that the best communicators are not necessarily those who speak the loudest or are the most commanding.[13:51]
Instead, the best communicators are those who reach out to have the best connection and to be understood.[14:29]

Trust and running full speed into the unknown

Jennifer says it does not matter if a teammate is two-legged or four-legged.[14:33]
The best relationships are those where the partner trusts you enough to run full speed into the unknown, knowing you will get them through safely.[14:39]
She notes that this trust should be based not on merely being asked but because they want to.[13:37]
She concludes that this is agility and communication at their best.[14:49]
Jennifer thanks the audience and gives High Five additional cues: "Hi. Hi, come. Here, sit. High five. Good girl."[15:06]

Outro and credits from the host

Identifying the event and where to watch

Elise states that the talk was by Jennifer Crank speaking at TED Sports Indianapolis in 2025.[14:58]
She invites listeners to watch Jennifer and High Five in action on stage at TED.com.[15:06]
Elise mentions that if listeners are curious about TED's curation, they can learn more at TED.com/curationguidelines.[15:11]

Credits for TED Talks Daily production team

Elise notes that TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.[15:19]
She says the episode was fact-checked by the TED Sports Research Team.[15:25]
She credits producers and editors Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tanzika Sangmarnivong.[15:30]
The episode was mixed by Christopher Fasey-Bogan, with additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.[15:38]
Elise signs off by saying she will be back tomorrow with a fresh idea and thanks listeners for listening.[15:42]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Effective communication means prioritizing the other party's natural channels of understanding, not just the ones that feel natural to you.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What communication channels do the people (or animals) you work with respond to most instinctively-words, actions, tone, body language, or something else?
  • • How might your current reliance on your own preferred way of communicating be creating misunderstandings or slowing others down?
  • • What is one specific relationship this week where you could deliberately shift to the other person's preferred way of receiving information?
2

Clarity and consistency of signals are critical; mixed or late cues force others to guess, which leads to errors and lost speed.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your life do your words, tone, and body language sometimes send different messages at the same time?
  • • How could tightening the timing of your feedback or instructions improve performance on your team or in your family?
  • • What is one situation you're facing where you can simplify your message and align all your signals before you speak or act?
3

High performance comes from tailoring your approach to the individual in front of you rather than treating everyone the same.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which people in your life have very different temperaments or sensitivities that you haven't fully adapted to yet?
  • • How could recognizing someone's specific strengths, fears, and learning style change the way you coach, manage, or support them?
  • • What is one concrete adjustment you can make this week to "train the person you were given" instead of the one you wish you had?
4

Guidance is most effective when it's timed just right-neither so late that it causes panic nor so early that it creates unnecessary hesitation or delay.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what kinds of situations do you tend to intervene too late, only after problems have already appeared?
  • • How might giving direction or feedback a bit earlier-but still close enough to be relevant-help others stay "at speed" toward their goals?
  • • What is one upcoming decision or project where you can plan the timing of your input more intentionally?
5

Trust-based relationships motivate others to move boldly with you because they want to, not because they are being controlled or coerced.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your life are you relying more on authority or pressure than on trust and voluntary buy-in?
  • • How could you show someone that you are a reliable "navigator" so they feel safer committing fully to a shared direction?
  • • What is one action you can take this week to strengthen trust with a key partner so they feel more confident running "full speed into the unknown" with you?

Episode Summary - Notes by Devon

How to communicate with your dog, from a Westminster champion | Jennifer Crank
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