Adoptable puppies bring joy and mental wellness to the LA yoga world

By Jorge Garcia

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For yogis looking for some puppy love to go with their mindfulness, a yoga class in Los Angeles offers gentle stretching alongside nine puppies, many of them looking for permanent homes.

As practitioners work through a series of asanas or poses, pups assist by jumping on the backs of those in "cat-cow" pose and scrambling underneath the elevated bodies of those in "downward dog."

Laughing Frog Yoga studio said it has been offering puppy yoga since 2019 and that it is still among the few Southern California studios to do so. Dog wrangler and foster pup mom Julie Mondin said the class provides many mental health benefits for students, like happiness, joy, and socialization.

“Puppies bring joy, and puppies also bring a sort of mental, soothing stableness," said Mondin. "They provide oxytocin, dopamine."

"They're great for humans of every kind. Puppy yoga is fun, it's wholesome."

Most of the adoptable puppies have been surrendered by owners or are rescues from shelters, and to date, around 58 puppies have been adopted through the class. Laughing Frog Yoga also offers goat and kitten yoga, but nothing compares to the delight generated by puppies.

“I think puppy yoga is better. I think it actually is more connecting because somebody is playing with a puppy, and the person next to you is going to start laughing," Mondin said.

"The goats aren't as expressive, but they're really cute goats. But let's get real. It's about the puppies.”

Puppy yoga instructor Kaia Placa is in charge of leading the pack. From her experience, signs of emotional fatigue often go unchecked for many people, so she likes to tailor her class around the fun and joy of each moment.

“When you bring the puppies in, you bring the outdoors in, you're welcoming the sense of play, ease, and lightness," said Placa. "And truly, for our mental health, we do just need to step outside of our regular kind of day-to-day grown-up lives and just experience a little childlike wonder. It doesn't always have to be so serious."

Donning leather and hoodies and heavily motivated by treats, Mondin’s veteran pup crew is led by Gilbert, Frankie and Clover who help train the new pups with socialization and behavior on the road to a potential adoption.

For many yoga enthusiasts like Aubrey Ackerman, the aura of zen, relaxation and body movement becomes secondary as the pups join in on the fun mid-stretch.

“I think it's impossible to leave a class like this feeling sad or feeling anxious, so I think it's probably really great,” she said.

But while yogis leave class feeling zen, puppies will be puppies and accidents do sometimes happen, Mondin said.

"Nothing can go wrong," she said, "even if you get peed on."

(Reporting by Jorge Garcia in Los Angeles; Editing by Mary Milliken and Matthew Lewis)