The Olate Dogs are bringing their tricks, and positive messages, to town (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNicholas says the family tries to get rescue dogs for the show, which is how Richard got into this business in the first place; he started out working with rescue dogs on the streets of his hometown, Santiago, Chile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been an animal lover,\u201d says Nicholas. \u201cFor me, performance-wise, I just like being able to entertain. The stresses of life always get to you, and stuff like that; you never know if someone\u2019s having a bad day or something, so if you can perform and have them forget whatever day they had, or some sort of stress, for at least an hour and a half. That\u2019s a very rewarding thing in itself\u2014just being able to travel around and be with all the dogs and see the world is a real blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholas says that on the off chance the family picks out a rescue dog\u2014typically, they pick a poodle mix because they\u2019re a hypo-allergenic breed and built well for doing tricks\u2014who doesn\u2019t take to the stage training well, the dog will go to his grandpa\u2019s farm, a large acreage where dogs can run around and be free.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time we need a new dog, we try to rescue, if at all possible. We go to shelters and look for energetic dogs that could potentially work for the tricks that we need,\u201d he says, adding that the dogs need a home just as much as the Olates need the dogs. \u201cEvery time we do need a new dog, that\u2019s what we like to turn to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The show also includes a short film about rescuing animals with details about his father\u2019s poverty-stricken past.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically a rescue story, but it\u2019s kind of a little cute twist on it, so instead of the human rescuing the dog it\u2019s vice-versa\u2014the dog thinks it\u2019s rescuing the human,\u201d says Nicholas.<\/p>\n
Nicholas says the message of rescuing dogs, and how that ties into his father\u2019s story, is also talked about in the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell the people how he started rescuing when he was about 12 years old,\u201d says Nicholas. \u201cWe definitely feel that\u2019s something that\u2019s very important because, I mean, they\u2019re living beings as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholas says they get people coming up to them after the show who don\u2019t necessarily like dogs but who enjoyed the show just the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really rewarding for us,\u201d he says, \u201cto be able to put on something that\u2019s entertaining not necessarily just for people that like dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Olate Dogs
\n2 pm Sunday, April 8
\nVarious prices, Farquhar Auditorium, University of Victoria
\nuvic.ca\/auditorium<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When third-generation circus performer Richard Olate won America\u2019s Got Talent in 2012, he wasn\u2019t very optimistic about it going anywhere. Six years later, the family is touring with their show, and Richard\u2019s son, Nicholas, says turning the act into a family unit is a growing endeavour for him, considering that his dad is getting ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-april-4-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15724"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15786,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15724\/revisions\/15786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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