It used to be that the only mention of cats and dogs in Yoga class were the cat stretching pose and the downward facing dog pose. But, Yoga is not just for people any more. It has become increasingly popular to involve your canine companion in Yoga classes.

There is a book to help you called Doga: Yoga for Dogs by Jennifer Brilliant and William Berloni available from Amazon. The book itself is somewhat tongue-in-cheek with lots of pictures of dogs being dogs but looking like they are in Yoga poses. The book would make a great present for your Yoga practicing, dog-loving friends.

There are also more traditional Yoga classes to which dogs are invited. Discussed on the Discovery Channel News, are classes held by the Seattle/King County Humane Society. The instructor, Brenda Bryan, who teaches human yoga as well as the new class for both dogs and humans at the Humane Society, says the dogs react to the gentle energy in the room. The class was designed to offer a new way for humans to spend time with their pets.

"As we get into it, the dogs all kind of calm down," said Bryan, who developed the poses for the class by working with her own two dogs.  In Bryan's class, the humans do traditional yoga poses while staying in contact physically with their pets.

Part of the class includes gentle stretching and dog massage, but most of the time the humans gently use the dogs to support yoga props. In jest, Bryan tells us that the last pose of the exercise is the upward-facing belly pose.

Doga: Yoga for Dogs

 
Dog Yoga News From The Discovery Channel 

Posted by Barbara.