Fuel Incredible: Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s faithful furry companion for her Olympic journey
As the Olympic season hits full steam and figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek and her pairs partner, Maxime Deschamps, fine-tune their programs ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, a tiny ball of golden fluff accompanies them to every training session.
Goldy, a maltipoo weighing barely five pounds, has become much more than a pet; she’s the team’s unofficial mascot, a boundless source of comfort, and a daily reminder that despite the pressure of the Olympic stage, pure and simple joys still exist.
“Goldy’s the one thing that, no matter what, can make me smile because she’s just so cute,” Stellato-Dudek says. “Every time I look at her, she’s like a little teddy bear.”
Goldy’s story begins with an unexpected surprise. Two and a half years ago, while Stellato-Dudek was preparing to head home for a visit with family, Deschamps and their coach, Josée Picard, orchestrated something that would change her life.
“Deanna always wanted a dog,” explained Deschamps, also mentioning that Stellato-Dudek had originally imagined a larger breed, like an Australian shepherd. But living in an apartment in Montreal steered the choice toward something smaller.
“Deanna left for a two-week vacation,” recalled Deschamps. “I went with Josée to get the dog. I babysat Goldy for two weeks until Deanna came back. I didn’t know if Deanna was going to be mad at me at first and then happy or just happy. [It’s a] big responsibility to get a dog.”
On the day she returned, Deschamps greeted his partner at the airport with a mysterious announcement: “I have a surprise for you, but you have to wait for it.”
She tried to guess, immediately rejecting the most obvious option. “I was like, ‘Did he get me a dog?’ Then I was like, ‘No, that would be crazy. He’d never get me a dog without asking or letting me pick it.’”
But that’s exactly what had happened.
“Max was like ‘Wait here’. So I was outside the door. And then he opened the door and he was standing there smiling. And then Goldy, behind him, slowly walked up and I was like ‘Oh my gosh’ and then I went down to grab her and she peed, as they do.”
It was instant love. “I didn’t want any other dog but her, instantly.”
Goldy quickly became part of their daily routine, gaining a permanent presence at the rink as they worked towards their goals, which included becoming world champions in 2024.
“She expects to come every day,” says Stellato-Dudek. “If there’s a day where, for some reason, we can’t bring her and I have to leave her at home, she looks at me like, ‘What are you doing? I always come with you!’ She hops in her little to-go bag, ready to come.”
The tiny dog has made a name for herself everywhere she goes.
“I always joke that everywhere we bring her, she’s so popular. Everybody loves her,” says Stellato-Dudek, who moved from the United States to Montreal in 2019 to partner with Deschamps. “She becomes the mascot of wherever she’s at. … Everybody wants to hold her, play with her, touch her, take pictures.”
One of the most memorable moments with Goldy came at Skate Canada International in October 2024 when she attended a training session.
“We brought her into the rink—I’m not even sure we were supposed to—I had her in her little travel carrying case. She was sitting by our coach Josée’s feet as we were practicing on the ice. When our music came on, she started barking. She’s not a barker, so she started barking because she was like ‘Oh hey those are my people! Let me out! I want to see!’ … Goldy actually watches us like a human would watch us.”
Goldy even loves to run on the ice. “She runs and drifts on purpose, then will run the other way and drift. She loves it,” Stellato-Dudek says.
A Canadian by birth, Goldy naturally attended Stellato-Dudek’s Canadian citizenship ceremony in December 2024. “I feel like she’s so much a part of me and my new life here in Canada and in Quebec. How can I not bring her to this momentous occasion of me becoming the same as her with Canadian citizenship?”
Goldy is even bilingual. “Josée only talks to her in French,” explains Stellato-Dudek. As a result, some commands are in French and others in English. “‘Assis’ is ‘sit’, so that’s in French, but then ‘shake’ in French is ‘donne la patte’ and I was like no, so I taught her ‘shake’,” she laughs.
For the 42-year-old skater, who navigates the highs and lows of an Olympic season, Goldy represents so much more than companionship.
“She’s a very snuggly dog. If I’m sitting on the couch, she’s got to be sitting on my lap. She can’t be next to me or across from me—she has to be sitting on me,” she says fondly. “That’s what dogs are, they’re just unconditional love and unconditional cuteness. Even if you’re frustrated or sad, you come around because they’re so unbelievably perfect.”
Deschamps also sees the difference Goldy has made since her arrival in their lives. “It’s zoo therapy. It brings joy, it’s relaxing, it grounds us.”
Even while travelling the world, just thinking about Goldy brings Stellato-Dudek comfort.
“When we’re at competition, we’ll be sent photos from whoever’s watching her, and it always brings back that loving feeling, how much I just adore her,” she says. “This is so important to us, the Olympics, but there is more to life, and she reminds us of that every day just by giving us some unconditional love, but also just doing something funny or snuggling up or being really cute.
“It takes your mind off of whatever you’re hyper focusing on from that day that you want to work on or that you want to fix. She kind of distracts you, but in a positive way, at a time when you probably shouldn’t be thinking about skating because you’ve been doing it all day long. You need to give your brain a break.”
It’s because of those special bonds, and the therapeutic benefits that pets bring to all Canadians, that Nulo is collaborating with Team Canada to support athletes and the four-legged companions who provide invaluable support to them on the road to Milano Cortina 2026 and LA 2028. To learn more about the partnership between Nulo and Team Canada, visit this link.