Since last week’s diatribe on exercising with your pet, I’ve read a couple of articles on the emerging trend of “doggie yoga.”  Before seeing these national pieces I had thought it another quirky South Beach phenomenon and not a bona-fide national trend.

Silly as it sounds (at least to me), people across the US actually practice yoga with their dogs in incomprehensibly large groups. And—if the reports are accurate—it actually relaxes the dogs.

For the record, I love yoga. The Bikram style of “hot yoga” is best for my almost comical inflexibility. But I have a hard time imagining that I would be anything but a wreck after one of these dog yoga sessions—I have a hard enough time relaxing on my own in a yoga studio, much less in the outdoors with a playful dog in tow.

Still, I hear it somehow comes together for those who engage in this activity. If you know of anyone who does this or should you be one of the cutting edge crowd already doing your downward dogs with Fido…please let me know: Is it for real?

My personal belief on this front tends towards the positive. Any new kick, fly-by-night though it may seem, is absolutely welcome if it means our animal-lifestyle arsenal is fuller and our bodies even just a bit stronger.