“Downward dog” was taken very literally Saturday morning.
Attendees stretched out on their mats, following along with the live yoga instructor as they waited to pet one of the 10 dogs walking through the maze of mats.
Around 115 participants overtook the lawn in front of Swamp Head Brewery at 11 a.m. for a puppy yoga event hosted by the Gator Service Dogs club.
Gator Service Dogs, formerly known as the Florida Puppy Club, is a UF club created in 2019. President Maya Lander, a 22-year-old UF natural resource conservation senior, said the club fundraises and raises dogs for Dogs Inc., an organization that trains service dogs for veterans with PTSD and guide dogs for people with visual impairments.
Lander said each year, the club aims to have at least one member help raise a dog before it is ready for training. She’s been raising Murph, a black labrador retriever named after Murphree Hall, since August 2025.
Events like puppy yoga help desensitize dogs like Murph to distractions, she said.
“A lot of his things are distractions like shoes and socks that he likes to steal around the house,” Lander said, “so this is a great way for him to kind of ignore some of those things.”
She said the club changed its name heading into the Spring semester to better align with the club’s goals. Despite the name change, she said she was happy with the event’s turnout.
“I'm really glad that people still came out and are supporting our cause, especially a lot of people who are not from UF,” Lander said.
Puppy yoga is typically the club’s largest fundraiser, so she said they may host another one later in the semester. Saturday’s event raised about $300, which Lander said put them much closer to the Dogs Inc. fundraising goal they set each school year.
“Right now, we're [at] about $3,000 for the school year, and so we need to hit $4,000, so it's definitely a really big push towards that,” she said.
Gator Service Dogs social media coordinator Emmy Larrew, a 20-year-old UF health science junior, said the puppy yoga events help desensitize and socialize the dogs before they start their guide and service training.
The dogs at the event were service dogs in training that Larrew said live with a volunteer raiser. For about 12 to 18 months, she said the dogs live with raisers, where the dogs learn basic commands, are socialized and get their required veterinary shots.
Once it's time for a dog to go into training, she said the dogs go to “K-9 University” at Dogs Inc.'s headquarters in Palmetto, Florida, where trainers figure out the dog’s specialization, such as becoming a guide, service or companion dog.
“There, they basically have a whole college experience,” Larrew said. “They have a dorm, they have roommates and they go to classes.”
Isabella Patino, a 22-year-old UF nursing senior who attended the event, said it was her fifth time going to puppy yoga.
She said she heard about the event after her friend shared the Gator Service Dogs Instagram post with her. Being away from home for college, she said she doesn’t get to see dogs often, so she jumps on any opportunity to do so.
“Anytime I see puppy yoga, I always try to come out with my friends,” Patino said.
One of her favorite dogs was at the event: Dimitri, a golden retriever companion dog who provides emotional support. Patino said she also sees Dimitri at Shands Hospital when he comes as a therapy dog.
After hearing about the event last week, Adam Davis, a civil engineer at GSE Engineering & Consulting, said he immediately knew he wanted to attend.
While he and his girlfriend previously went to goat yoga on a farm, he said this was their first puppy yoga event. He said he enjoyed how much closer the dogs got to him than the goats.
“A really big lab that came flopped on us, and everybody else came and licked me on the face,” he said, “so that was pretty awesome.”
Davis said he liked how the event helped expose the dogs in training to new people while also drawing people outside to exercise.
“I will be jumping at the next opportunity to go to one,” Davis said.
Caroline Walsh is a contributing writer for The Alligator.
Caroline is a freshman sports journalism student in her second semester at The Alligator. She is a photographer for the Multimedia desk. In her free time, she enjoys running and watching hockey.
