Beth Skogen
The poses are more like suggestions, secondary to the real purpose of the class: giving and getting puppy love.
After signing in at the front counter, smiling staff members usher us past a series of chest-high gates, designed to prevent escapes. They warn us: Anything you don’t want chewed gets put in a side room. Welcome to Saturday morning puppy yoga at The Puppy Den.
The puppies are cordoned off beind a side gate while we humans get settled in a bright — and surprisingly fresh-smelling — room. We can hear the pups howling and yipping, collars jangling — the intensity is mounting.
In the middle of the room, instructor Susan Smedley is helping us get centered. She says if we are calm we can encourage the puppies to be calm.
Then the gate opens and the puppy parade begins. A golden retriever, a French bulldog, a pomeranian, a German shepherd, a yellow lab, several puff balls. This has to be all the puppies. But no….there’s more. Eighteen puppies gallop in, and Smedley forges ahead, leading us through a series of poses. Everyone but Smedley seems highly distractible. The puppies form little packs, writhing and wrestling, and as they cavort, we run through our poses. On our hands and knees for cat/cow and downward dog, the puppies take advantage, slipping beneath our bellies. This is a judgement-free space; nobody expects us to ignore the puppies. The poses are … suggestions. A surprising number of people are following Smedley’s instructions, but when puppies approach, we scoop them up. We stretch. They kiss. Deep breathing is easy when you have a chance to put your nose right up into a soft face, smelling that marvelous skunky puppy breath. Oh, the tummies!
Oh, right. We’re doing yoga.
Leigh Anson, a dog trainer and the events and outreach coordinator at The Dog Den, Puppy Den’s parent company, tells me later that most of these pups are Puppy Den clients. The daycare and training facility offers a chance for clients to drop off their young ’uns for extra socialization time. If you happen to live with a puppy and sign up for a class, you can bring the puppy for free. Limiting the age to 16 weeks ensures that the puppies will be a little more interested in humans. “It’s super helpful for the puppies, too, to be socialized in a mixture of different ages, different people, especially with the people doing such unusual motions,” says Anson. “The more new things puppies can experience in a positive way, the better it is for the puppies.”
The puppies love everyone, but the kids in the room are puppy magnets. A girl, around 8 years old, grins ear to ear as she cradles a smiling pomeranian. I feel a surge of positive emotion as Mr. Carson, a shiny black short-legged hound with ears almost touching the floor, kisses my face and relaxes all his muscles as I hold him for a forward fold.
At times, as the packs form and reform, and the wrestling continues, things occasionally get out of hand for the pups. But the staff is there to separate and redistribute them when that happens. Same goes for returning stolen water bottles — or reporter’s pens and notebooks.
Smedley, an instructor at The Inspired Mat in Oregon (she also teaches Goat Yoga), does an excellent job of working in references to the puppies. She stays remarkably focused, even making slight adjustments to our postures as the canines tumble at her feet. “It’s a perfect opportunity to live your yoga,” she says afterward. “You have to be ready to change things up on a dime and you just have to have a sense of joy and fun about you, and be okay with whatever happens. That’s sort of the whole point of a yoga practice, is to help you get to that place, where you’re not attached to any outcome.”
Kyle Severson is attending Puppy Yoga for the second time. He brought his daughter Hailey for a birthday present when she turned 10; her brother Nolan begged for a chance to attend, too. With 18 puppies in the room, both siblings get plenty of face time. “Kids and puppies mesh well. They find each other,” says Severson. “This is their ideal day.”
Smedley knows that doing yoga is probably not the main priority for many of the creatures in the room. “In puppy yoga, people are just all about hanging out with the puppies. That sense of joy, starting your day that way, what could be better?” she says. “If you’re looking for peace and calm — probably not the place to come for your yoga practice.”
But it is a chance to reexamine our human attachment to certain outcomes. Why won’t that adorable, immensely fuzzy golden retriever come over here? Why won’t Mr. Carson let go of my pen? “Animals are not Instagram animals,” says Smedley. “They are real live beings. We have expectations about how things are supposed to be. But it’s like: Be where you are, be who you’re with.”
As the class comes to a close, one of the canine participants squats and takes a dump on a yoga mat. “It’s always a fitting end,” says Smedley.
Frequency of Puppy Yoga at the Puppy Den: Currently once a month, but possibly shifting to every other month. Next class is Dec. 10.
Canine participants: Average is 10-15, puppies under 16 weeks.
Human capacity: 30
Cost for humans: $25 (bring your puppy for free)
Cost for Puppy Den clients to have puppies participate: $0. Puppy Den also encourages foster parents to bring rescue pups to class for extra socialization.
Location: 3124 Syene Road, Madison
Dog Den (parent company) tagline: “A dog is a friend who listens with his heart and replies with his tail.”
