Alicia Witt's 'Peaceful' Rescue Dog Helps Ease Her Stage Fright: 'He Sits Down by Me at the Piano' (Exclusive)

Ernest, an Entlebucher Mountain Dog, has snuggled with Alicia Witt on stage at her concerts and on the set of 'Orange Is the New Black'

The way Alicia Witt talks about her dog Ernest is very, well, earnest.

"He is home," says the 48-year-old Longlegs star of her little Entlebucher Mountain Dog, who she adopted from the California rescue facility Take Me Home.

"I met him at an adoption event in Venice, and I was blown away by how he was a young adult dog at that time, but he was so peaceful," Witt tells PEOPLE, "and just down for whatever was asked of him."

Related: Alicia Witt Had ‘an Eerie,’ Prophetic Dream About a Specific Longlegs Scene — Before She Even Read the Script (Exclusive)

Ernest Hemingway Witt, a burgeoning social media star, is well-behaved enough to accompany Witt onto the sets of her film and television projects.

"He has always been like this," she reports. "He's so peaceful that often on a very dog-friendly set, like Orange Is the New Black, he was permitted to sit right there at Video Village with the producers, and Jenji Kohan, the creator of the show, was just snuggling with him in between takes."

More recently, Ernest has taken on another role in Witt's life: easing her stage fright. As a musician who performs her music in Tennessee — where she's lived since filming the show Nashville — and in weekend tours across the country, Witt has used her pet's good vibes to her advantage.

"Talk about work-life balance!" she quips. As an artist, "a lot of the time when we have something important in our work, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. So we're maybe not as present as we otherwise would've been. And that does us a disservice, and it does the people we're connecting to a disservice."

But "with Ernest around," she adds, "he's so completely in the moment, and he makes me in the moment too. So any stage fright or sense of artifice I might've had through being anxious, that just vanishes."

Related: Woman Adopts One of the 'Perfect' Dogs Who Inspired Her Animal Rescue Work: 'We're So Grateful' (Exclusive)

The pooch is even comfortable onstage, Witt says with a grin. "He comes out with me at the end of all of my shows for the encore. He comes out, sees the people, and then sits down by me at the piano."

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In addition to Ernest, Witt credits her "soul companions" — like The Walking Dead costar Melissa McBride — with keeping her grounded amid the uncertainties of life as an actress, musician, and person.

Those friends, both human and animal, embolden Witt to try everything from competing as the Dandelion on The Masked Singer season 9 to producing her upcoming holiday album, I Think I'm Spending Christmas With You.

"I'm so grateful that every single thing happened the way it has," she shares.

Witt stars alongside Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage and Blair Underwood in writer-director Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, in theaters now.

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