"Doga" For Dog Fitness

BELLEVUE, Washington (AP) -- By the end of a recent yoga class, many participants were passed out on their mats, in a position their instructor calls the "upward facing belly pose."

That's largely because about half the group was about to walk out on four legs: The Seattle/King County Humane Society in Washington now offers 40 minute classes of "doggie yoga."

Brenda Bryan, who teaches human yoga as well as the new class for both dogs and humans, says the dogs react to the gentle energy in the room. (Audio slideshow: Yoga's getting pup-ular)

"As we get into it, the dogs all kind of calm down," said Bryan, who developed the poses for the class by working with her own two dogs -- Gus, a mixed breed, and Honey, a shar pei-boxer mix -- and talking to instructors in such cities as New York, Los Angeles, California, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where yoga for dogs and their owners is starting to catch on.

The question she and the Humane Society get the most from prospective human students is how do the people and dogs interact?

In Bryan's class, the humans do traditional yoga poses -- yes, including "downward facing dog" -- while staying in contact physically with their pets.

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