Goat Yoga was an idea born by Lainey Morse, the CEO of Goat Yoga, who resides in Oregon that was meant to be a fun, relaxing way of doing yoga and incorporating goats as well.  Morse created this unique idea in a dark time in her life, as she had been diagnosed with a life-changing disease and going through a divorce and stated, “When something like that happens it’s really easy to get inside your own head and spiral down a tunnel of depression.”  However, Morse has a barn with many goats and would relieve the stress life brought upon her by hanging out with her goats, which she states, “was a happy distraction {from life} and relieved a lot of the pain and stress.”  This became known as “Goat Happy Hour” which was an idea she carried out to her friends, one of them being a yoga teacher who assisted with creating the idea of using goats in her lessons.  She ended up teaching the goats to jump on humans back in a tabletop position without any pain to the goat or human.  Morse then established the concept as Goat Yoga, and the idea has now blown up as an internet sensation that now thousands of people over the world enjoy until this day.

Whenever I first heard about Goat Yoga, I knew this was something that I had to put on my bucket-list.  Growing up an animal lover, I saw a Buzzfeed video about goat yoga and the benefits they included.  Immediately, I researched and found a local organization named Horse & Goat Yoga, that offers not just Goat, but Horse Yoga!  This was around Mother’s Day, and because my mother was an animal lover like me, I knew this was the perfect gift for her and a unique mother-and-daughter bonding experience.

Horse & Goat Yoga offers many options to make your experience the best it can be.  For example, there are many locations surrounding the Philadelphia area with different options, for example (for those 21 and over), you can participate in goat yoga and visit a winery to have a fun night with your friends while there are other packages where you can do yoga with only horses, yoga with only goats, or a mixture of the two.  Because my mom and I love animals, I decided to choose the package where we could do yoga with goats and lambs, and after feed the goats and lambs while they would bring out baby chickens for us to cuddle with which was located in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

After completing Goat yoga with my mom, I would say this is something any animal lover should add to their bucket list!  This was one of the most unique experiences I have had the opportunity to take part in.  Not only is this a unique idea, but truly any stress that you may be experiencing seems to be eased with the combination of yoga and seeing the cute goats and other animals.  My mother, Shanda Hudgins, stated “It was almost like I forgot about all my worries in the moment.  Looking at all the little faces was one of the most therapeutic things I have ever done.  I will definitely have to do this again!”  However, the only negative from my experiences (which is something an animal cannot help) is that the goats would like to at times chew on the back of your hair, but the yoga teacher did a great job by stopping that behavior by encouraging them to hop down for food to distract them from chewing on your hair.  However, this was not a consistent problem and only happened occasionally in my experience.  If you are ever looking for a gift to get someone that they might have not received before or need a therapeutic activity to relieve the stress life may inflict upon you, Goat Yoga is the activity for you!