dog yoga/ doga

I saw this & had to share. Make sure you look at all the pics. let's see my 103 lb dog tries to "share" my yoga mat with me but I did catch him doing a perfect downward dog on the mat once. I wish I had a pic of that.

Have any of you done this? Would you? What do you think would happen if you did bring your dog to a class? My dog would be the one instigating play with all the other dogs and barking at any human who looked at him too long. I don't think it would be a calming endeavor for me! :D

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/fa...s.html?_r=1&hp

That would never work with my fur kids, two jack russells and a malinois. I see a lot of random crotch sniffing going on.

I know it sounds silly, but I do a lot of this stuff at home with one of my older dogs. He's 8, and a Boston Terrier, and is a master stretcher. He loves getting rubbed and stretched out! There's not a whole lot of yoga, but definitely lots of stretching. It's good for the both of us!

To my pups, yoga is a very fun game. The rules are as follows:

1. Wait til the human gets balanced in some complicated pose
2. Find a way to make her fall out of the pose. Depending on the pose, some favorite ways to do this are licking ticklish feet, leaning into me, putting a cold wet nose in my unsuspecting ear, etc.
3. Stand over the human after she falls down, smile, back off, then repeat.

I'm "between dogs" right now :( but we just had a conversation about this a couple of weeks ago in Yoga class. My teacher agrees that dogs are natural yogis. :)

When I last had dogs, it was before I started doing Yoga, but they were pretty clumsy when they tried to help me do Pilates. Maybe they just need more of a spiritual focus. ;)

Whenever I do Downward Dog, Jimmy does it to - it's pretty cute. Barley, the foster dog, on the other hand, would nose a ball into the place most likely to hurt the most when I moved out of a pose. He is very precise in his placement (he's discovered that if he does this right, I'm more likely to get frustrated and throw the ball - which is the goal). I have to ban him from the room if I'm doing any kind of step aerobics. :P But to go to class for it? Jimmy would be more interested in the other dogs than in yoga. But if it works for you, why not?

Dogs and cats do their best to be in the way. They just want to be near me, then I have the audacity to change poses. Or they try to be close, but not too far, and I move, thus changing the spacial orientation, and they're in the way, again. And I have old fur kids, I cannot imagine doing a yoga session with young ennergetic dog that wants to PLAY!!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by malaholic

To my pups, yoga is a very fun game. The rules are as follows:

1. Wait til the human gets balanced in some complicated pose
2. Find a way to make her fall out of the pose. Depending on the pose, some favorite ways to do this are licking ticklish feet, leaning into me, putting a cold wet nose in my unsuspecting ear, etc.
3. Stand over the human after she falls down, smile, back off, then repeat.

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:D :D LOL!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by greycoral

I know it sounds silly, but I do a lot of this stuff at home with one of my older dogs. He's 8, and a Boston Terrier, and is a master stretcher. He loves getting rubbed and stretched out! There's not a whole lot of yoga, but definitely lots of stretching. It's good for the both of us!

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That's very sweet!
I don't think it's silly at all! Our dog was dumped and likely abused as a pup. He's about 3.5 years now & it's taken him a while to warm to caresses. He may never be mr.cuddly -which is hard-cuz he looks & feels like a big ball of soft fur. But he likes to be near us, loooves tummy rubs & when I help him extend his legs' stretch.

I'd like to learn more about using touch when we're in public when he's most nervous around people. A home video of doggy yoga/acupressure would be useful!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by malaholic

To my pups, yoga is a very fun game. The rules are as follows:

1. Wait til the human gets balanced in some complicated pose
2. Find a way to make her fall out of the pose. Depending on the pose, some favorite ways to do this are licking ticklish feet, leaning into me, putting a cold wet nose in my unsuspecting ear, etc.
3. Stand over the human after she falls down, smile, back off, then repeat.

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VERY funny! and by the way I'm in love with your Mals (avatar) - okay so I fall in love with just about every Mal I meet. We think our dog is part Mal & if we're lucky our second dog will be a chatty Mal girl.

Maeve is a good girl, as she will lie next to my yoga mat.

Fiona, "the Diva," insists on grabbing a nylabone and parking herself across my mat, chewing away. I try to work around her but eventually, have to nudge "herself" off!

I'm hoping the new puppy models Maeve! I don't want to have to work around two goldens. :)