Doga aka Yoga for Dogs

Now that’s a downward dog

From the Department of All Things Trendy comes the following — doing yoga with your dog, or “doga.”

In Bellevue, Wash., yoga instructor and licensed massage therapist Brenda Bryan — that’s her to the right — began teaching a doga class in 2006 at the Seattle-King County Humane Society.

In recent weeks, doga has been featured on ABC’s Nightline and in the Washington Post.

If this has hit Baltimore, somebody let me know, because Ace and I would like to give it a try.

Doga classes are available in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Fla., Canada, and even Japan.

To say it’s all the rage might be not be too much of a, well, stretch.

In a typical doga class, owners help their pups facilitate different poses, and do their own poses using the animals as props. Owners also perform doggy massage and acupressure to help soothe and relax their pets, according to the ABC News report.

The story features Kari Harendorf, who started doing yoga with her dog Charlie five years ago and now leads a monthly classes at Bideawee Animal Shelter in New York City.

“Every time I would get my mat out, Charlie would come lay on top of it,” she explained. “I would go into [downward facing] dog and he would just lie under me and look up at me. He put his paw on my hand, and we started doing yoga together.”

Doga was also featured in this Washington Post piece about a class in Chevy Chase.

(Photo by Associated Press)

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