Angela Ewtushik looks across her comfortable country kitchen at her dog Rally trying to contain his excitement and calm him when a visitor shows up.
Rally, a high energy seven-year-old Pyrenean Shepherd (Berger des Pyrenees) has won the hearts of countless Canadians after the duo appeared on the season premiere of television’s Canada’s Got Talent.
When Ewtushik first heard about auditions for the first season, she never thought of entering. In her circle of friends who train dogs in disc (Frisbee) competitions she had heard of a man and his son who were planning to try out for the show with their dog. It turned out family obligations stopped them from participating. That’s when the idea struck that she and Rally should enter.
“I said if he’s not going to try out, I will,” she said.
The initial audition for hopefuls was in Toronto last September where the duo appeared in front of a producer, note-taker and cameraman. About 8,000 people auditioned in Toronto alone with other auditions held across the country.
From the initial auditions, 160 performers moved on to a live, taped show that took place Dec. 3 to 6. Portions of the taped acts were edited and aired on the March 4 season premiere.
Judges, Martin Short, Measha Brueggergosman and Stephan Moccio gave the Minto duo a thumb’s up, sending them to the next round. In the “cutdown” round taped in February a total of 244 acts from auditions across the country were narrowed down to 37 semi-finalists.
They didn’t hear they would be moving on in the show until early this year.
“From December to February we didn’t know whether we’d made it,” Ewtushik said, before they learned they had made the semi-finals.
It wasn’t the first time Rally has been on stage. He performed in a theatrical presentation of Annie in Harriston.
“There were eight or nine shows and he played it different each time,” Ewtushik said of those 2010 performances.
As a dog trainer who runs the R&R Pet Paradise kennel with partner Rick Rauwerda at their Minto home, Ewtushik knows Canadians’ affinity for pets and thought the show would have attracted more acts.
“There were only 12 animal acts in Canada that tried out,” she said. “I was shocked.”
There was only two dog acts she was aware of in the pool of animal performances, which included rabbits.
On their website Ewtushik wrotes about how she and Rally met.
“Perhaps it was fate that brought Rally into my life. I used to have an adorable rescue dog named Scruffy, an active and yappy stray,” she said of her history with Rally. “One day when researching dog breeds, I came across the Berger des Pyrenees and was attracted by their scruffy look and their energetic nature – which was perfect for herding sheep in the Pyrenees Mountains and, I hoped, for canine Sports.
“I was looking for an addition to the family in the next few years that was a bit faster and agile, and this breed seemed to fit the bill. After finding a local breeder from Dundas, Ontario, I quickly found out that this was indeed the breed I was looking for and put my request in for a male, fawn, high-drive puppy. I didn’t have a timeline in mind, but gave the breeder a few years to find the ‘right’ one for me.”
“Just two months later the breeder contacted me because an arrangement for a puppy to go to a new home in Halifax fell through,” she said. “Of course, it was male, it was fawn-colored, and it was energetic, indeed, it was chewing on the phone cord as she was speaking to me. He was exactly the type of puppy I was looking for. Well I brought Rally home soon after and I fell in love with him from the start. Scruffy died just four months later, which is why I believe Rally came into my life at just the right time and with a real and genuine purpose.”
The love between the two is evident on a visit to the R&R Pet Paradise kennel where Rally is never too far from Ewtushik and out in the yard where they practice their performance as they prepare for the semi-final competition set to air on CITY-TV April 29.
Ewtushik said the duo has modified their performance. They practice five minutes, two to three times a day on weekends. During the week, Ewtushik practices alone, visualizing each move without Rally. She has also chosen different music for the coming show. It will include some of the disc stunts that brought them to the semi-finals, augmented by new ones.
“You can practice too much to the point where they get bored with it,” she said of the fine line her and Rally cover when practicing the routine. “That’s definitely the challenge. It’s not like a singer where they just sing another song.”
As Ewtushik knows from the pair’s disc competitions, one good performance doesn’t necessarily mean a similar performance the next day.
“I can go out with Rally at a competition and have a great round and the next day we can do the same round and it’s totally different. That’s the thing with a television performance; anything can happen.”
She credits Canada’s Got Talent production staff with helping them. Their television exposure and semi-final win has garnered them fans across the country.
The focus now is to moving on in the competition. “If we make it to the finals, I’d be over the moon,” Ewtushik said of the anticipation. “It will be decided by voters and the judges,” she said.
