By 
In 2021, I tried goat yoga in the gorgeous hills of Malibu. To say that it was an eventful day is an understatement.
Yoga with animals is on the rise: kitten yoga, bunny yoga and now puppy yoga. If you have Instagram, you may have seen sponsored videos on your feed of adorable puppies roaming around a yoga class. @Puppiesyogalosangeles came up on my Instagram feed, and as soon as I saw the Golden Retriever puppies, I was sold.
Puppies & Yoga is a weekend-only pop-up event, currently available in 12 US cities. The LA pop-up started on September 16th and will run through mid-November. If you want to book your spot, do it as soon as you can!
The price for the class is $69, but I let them know that I was going to write this article, so they offered me a $10 discount. I take pride in writing in-depth articles on my blog, and I wanted to include more information about the company. In our email exchange, they kindly declined sharing the backstory of Puppies & Yoga. Instead, they directed me to the website, where I could find some information:
Puppies & Yoga partners with local breeders in each city. Every week, they bring different dog breeds, which are announced on their Instagram page three days before the class.
With so many dogs being euthanized every year in Southern California, wouldn’t it be nice if Puppies & Yoga partnered with animal shelters? Someone asked this question on Instagram. Here’s what they replied:
“We love working with shelters as much as possible! However protocols are much different when collaborating with other organizations.”
Two days before the class, you’ll be sent an email with the exact address. The location for the September 21st class on Saturday was in a nondescript two-story loft in East Hollywood. Poodles were the chosen breed for my weekend class.
The house entrance led to a patio that faced the yoga room, which was very spacious with high ceiling. There was a dog fence separating the yoga room and the patio. When I got there, one girl welcomed me and asked me to sign a waiver on an iPad.
In the patio, they had a makeshift waiting area with a few chairs, a rack and a water station. While we were waiting, two women walked in carrying the poodles into the kitchen area in the back. This is where all the “awww” comments started. “Oh my God, I want to cry”, said one girl.
Class
Before the puppies came out, the yoga instructor gave us a breakdown of the class. It consisted of a 45-minute yoga flow, followed by a 30-minute playtime with the puppies. She said: “We’ll do a lot of seated poses so you can play with the puppies. They’ll take over the room in a few minutes. Feel free to cuddle and play with them as much as you want. It’ll be a very easy flow. When doing some of these poses, listen to your body.”
We started the class by doing a breathing exercise laid on our backs. As the instructor guided us through them, she played a very relaxing music. About two minutes in, a stampede of poodles took over the room: sniffing us, jumping on us, dropping our water bottles and licking our faces. During the class, two dogs peed. One of them peed on the towel a girl brought for her yoga mat.
Those first minutes of class were the most relaxing minutes you’ll ever get there.
Many of the poodles were frantically running around the room. It was mayhem in a good way. After five minutes of getting used to the dogs, the instructor resumed the class.
During the flow, the instructor had us do a series of plank to downward dog. I was able to do them uninterrupted, but the girl behind me was swarmed by the poodles. One of them playfully pulled her ponytail. Another girl wearing a cap was in a downward dog position when five poodles pulled off her cap and started sniffing on her expensive Louis Vuitton fanny pack. One of the staff members signaled her to see if she needed help, but she said she was ok.
A guy who was on the other end of the class, lay flat on his back with his arms spread open and said: “Come to me”, but they ignored him.
After a knee rotation series and a few lying down exercises, the flow was over.
In the promo videos on Instagram, they do a good job showing the puppies restfully sitting on people’s laps. Out of all the poodles, there were only two with a calming demeanor, here they are!
While we were taking pictures, I talked to the woman sitting next to me. She said she had been to the pop-up the week before with her sister, and planned on coming back before the pop-up ended in November. She used to have four dogs but they all died of natural causes.
She also told me that if I wanted a pet, adopting was always the best choice. As a cat lover and frequent visitor of cat cafes, I implicitly agreed. She recommended Wags and Walks in West LA, where they occasionally do yoga classes with rescue puppies that are up for adoption. It’s $40 per class.
Whether it’s a Poodle or a Golden Retriever, there are many breed-specific dog rescues in California.
Overall thoughts
🐾 Expect 95% of your time playing with puppies and 5% working out.
🐾 The yoga room was pristine and clean. There were four workers who were overseeing the poodles from different parts of the room. They had towels and cleaning sprays at the ready for any mishap.
🐾 Don’t wear expensive clothing or jewelry.
🐾 I had fun playing with the poodles, but I think Golden Retriever is the cutest puppy breed, and I wish they had them when I went there. 🙁 If you see videos of Husky or Golden Retriever puppies on their Instagram, don’t get your hopes up.
🐾 It is disclosed on the website that the breed changes every week, but the promo video with the Golden Retriever puppy was very misleading. You book the class first without knowing what breed you’re going to get. A girl in the comments said that she preferred to know the breed beforehand because there were certain dog breeds she couldn’t handle.
Update: They’re now announcing the breed on the website five days before the class.
🐾 The website says that the puppies are between 8 and 12 weeks old, but those poodles were very big! They were at least 12 weeks old judging by their size. After seeing the promo videos, I was expecting to play with smaller puppies. That was a dealbreaker for me. On their Instagram, they have photos of poodles, but those are much smaller than the ones from my class.
My class:
Promo pictures:
🐾 On the website, it says “Yoga & Chill. Abracadabra, relax”, which is another misleading claim. This was a very stimulating class with dogs running around everywhere. After the class, I read that poodles are extremely energetic. My hat goes off to anyone who owns one because I was exhausted afterwards.
🐾 Mats are provided in the class, but in the email instructions, they recommend bringing a towel for your mat. Unless you don’t mind getting dog pee, I would advise against it. If all the mats laid out in the class are black and there’s a bright towel, the dogs will gravitate towards it and use it as a pee pad. Remember, you’re not really going there to sweat.
🐾 Puppies & Yoga will be hosted every weekend until November.
🐾 If Puppies & Yoga hosts another pop-up in LA next year, would I go back? Probably not, but I’m glad to see what the hype was all about! When I emailed them, they asked me if I had a Tik Tok. Given the amount of sponsored posts on Instagram, it’s very clear where their target audience is at.
Puppies & Yoga Los Angeles: Website and Instagram
