A farm in the off-island suburb of Vaudreuil-Dorion was treated to a novel sight earlier this month — a yoga class with baby goats running around.
A goat yoga event was held for the first time in early September at the Ferme du Domaine Quinchien, just off Highway 338, and there will be more of it coming in October.
Goat yoga is essentially yoga in the presence of goats, who will sometimes try to jump on people's backs and maybe do a little snuggling with the participants. In the past year or so, goat yoga has mushroomed into an Internet phenomenon, with classes springing up across North America.
Farm owner Lainey Morse of Albany, Ore., south of Portland, is widely credited as the first to have ever staged a goat yoga event — a yoga teacher friend of hers held one on her farm during a children's birthday party. Since then, Morse has gone into goat yoga full-time, and there's a waiting list of more than 1,000 people to take her classes.
Diane Levesque, whose husband owns the Ferme du Domain Quinchien, thought it was a strange concept at first, but this past summer, some of her goats were trucked out of the farm for the Montreal area's first-ever goat yoga events — fundraisers in Montreal and Laval.
Later on, she decided to host an event right on her farm on Labor Day weekend, and it turned out to be a huge hit.
"I thought it was weird when I found out about it...I said 'are you sure about goat yoga?'" she laughs. "But when we started, and I saw the goats reacting very well with the people...and people loved it. It's fun to do something that people like."
One of her goats, a four-month-old named Rainbow, has become pretty popular among those taking classes.
"He's really the star of yoga," Levesque says,"because he goes up on people easily, and he follows the movements of the person. It's special."
There are more classes scheduled for October, and Levesque says they fill up fast.
"When we put a new date online, I'd say 24 hours, the yoga classes are complete," she says.
If you can get a spot, the classes are $25 — a fee which also gives you access to the farm as well.