Imagine this: you lay down, close your eyes and relax your muscles. You feel the squishy mat below you, and feel truly at ease. You sneak a peek at your friend laying beside you on their mat, but instead of seeing their peaceful posture, you come face-to-face with a happy little bundle of fur; its pink tongue sticking out to the side and its tail wagging manically, softly batting the side of your body. You lift up your arm, and the puppy curls right up against you. The two of you fall into a steady rhythm of breathing, hearts beating in time.
This exact experience is what has drawn tons of Bay Area residents into San Francisco for a morning of puppy yoga. Guests come to take part in an immersive yoga class with a side of serotonin.
This attraction is relatively new to the San Francisco area. Classes first started in early 2024, and have grown in popularity since. Puppies&Yoga, one of the hosts of puppy yoga in the city, now offer classes every weekend, each one with a different breed of puppies. Puppy yoga extends far beyond San Francisco; Puppies&Yoga has hosted classes in over 2000 cities all around the world, welcoming more than 45,000 participants. How has it grown so quickly? Well, the reasons are plentiful.
“Puppy yoga’s growing in popularity because it is getting more attention on social media, due to people posting about their own experiences,” senior and puppy yoga participant, Gabbie Thomas, said.
Puppies&Yoga’s social media presence has grown considerably over the past months, displaying pictures of smiling yoga goers cradling an adorable puddle of fur. Their posts encourage individuals who don’t have a dog, or maybe who have a dog that lost their soft puppy fur, to come out to San Francisco to experience the joy of the intoxicating puppy smell.
With 45 minutes of flow power yoga, followed by 30 minutes of cuddles with the puppies, puppy yoga offers multiple benefits to its attendees. Yoga, on its own, is known to improve energy levels, strength, posture, and balance. Combined with playing with puppies, which is known to improve mental health by lowering stress levels, anxiety, and depression, puppy yoga is beneficial for the body as a whole.
“It was good for my mental health, because I had a big tournament coming up. Being able to go to puppy yoga right before with a friend helped me take my mind off of the stress, and let me spend some time in the moment,” first-year Joslyn Cox said.
Puppy yoga not only benefits human participants, but also its canine participants. The socialization that the puppies experience is crucial to their development. Puppies&Yoga works with local breeders to bring in litters of all different varieties. The puppies are typically between 8 and 12 weeks old, and their time in the yoga classroom is generally their first time experiencing life outside of the litter. The yoga classes allow them to explore the world, relieve stress and ease their transition into full-time families.
“I was super excited before attending the class, and it lived up to my expectations. The yoga instructor was very good, and I really enjoyed the actual yoga part of the class. Then, after, when my body was feeling good post-yoga, the presence of the adorable puppies made the experience even better. There is seriously nothing better than playing with puppies,” Thomas said.
While puppy yoga in the city is more expensive than a typical yoga class (around $70), a regular session only offers the basic exercises. They say money can’t buy you happiness, but in this case of puppy vs. regular yoga, an extra 20 bucks goes a long way.
