An acrobatic act from Alberta wowed the audience of America's Got Talent, earning a Canadian team of dancers and dogs the coveted golden buzzer from host Terry Crews. The honour guarantees the group a trip straight to the quarterfinals, turning what the performers hoped would be a fun appearance into one of the standout moments of the season.
The act paired a team of acro dancers with dogs in a routine packed with what was described as puppy parkour and captivating choreography. It was a performance unlike anything else on the stage, blending athletic human acrobatics with the energy and precision of the animals, and judged worthy of the gold buzzer that sends an act through automatically.
For the young performers, the moment was almost impossible to believe. Eleven-year-old Kate Lee and her fellow dancer Zoe Gervais, who were seen practicing at their Southside Edmonton dance studio, said they were in complete shock when Terry Crews came out. They had not expected the golden buzzer at all and were simply excited to be on the show in the first place.
Part of what made the routine work was the closeness of the group itself. The bond between the dancers is tight-knit, with most of them related to at least one other member of the act. That family connection gave the performance an extra layer of warmth on top of the difficulty of the choreography they had to pull off together.
What really tied the act together, though, were the dogs and their owner, Jennifer Fraser. For her, the golden buzzer was the payoff for countless hours of work, as she explained that every single training session with her dogs had been leading up to that one moment on such a big stage in front of a national audience.
Fraser has been training dogs for almost all of her life and can often be found around Calgary, where she puts on community shows. She has already impressed crowds internationally and holds multiple Guinness World Records with one of her dogs, a track record that helped the act stand out among the field of hopefuls.
She said she loves getting out in front of the crowds and that the dogs love showing off just as much. Her wider hope is to inspire people to do more with their animals, pointing out that most breeds need far more than a single daily walk to thrive. With their tickets to the quarterfinals now locked in, the team heads to the live shows, where America decides who advances.