Most of us take Pilates to get rid of a pooch, but at Arlington’s new Puppies and Pilates classes, pooches—the dog kind—are the draw.
Puppies and Pilates launched April 11 at several DMV locations, including Burn Bootcamp in Arlington’s Ashton Heights neighborhood. The brainchild of Neighborhood Retail Group founder Bethany Kazaba and Alex Perrin, owner, founder and CEO of Cut Seven, a sports conditioning studio in D.C., it’s an instructor-led, full-body, mat-based workout with the addition of playful puppies.
“It was a combination of all the things that I really, really enjoy”—community, fitness and animals, says Kazaba, who has a degree in health and physical education from the University of Delaware. I decided to give it a try.
The Core of the Workout
Open to participants of all abilities and experience levels, the class includes 45 minutes of exercise and 30 minutes of post-Pilates puppy snuggles. I went to a late morning session in Arlington, choosing a mat accompanied by two pink resistance bands, a small pink workout ball and a hot-pink dog toy, hoping the toy would attract doggos.
Turns out the toy didn’t matter to this rambunctious bunch. Instructor Carla Derrick spent the first 20 minutes warming us up without pups present as we focused on activating our abdominal muscles. To ignite what she calls the “deep abs,” we started on our backs, legs raised and knees bent, squeezing our inner thighs together and angling our shins out. Then, we reversed it—pressing the balls of our feet together and sending our knees wide to make a diamond shape.
We also did the aptly named bird-dog pose, starting on hands and knees and extending one arm forward and the opposite leg back to lengthen our bodies, then crunching knee to elbow.
“Our abs have two parts: deep abs and upper abs, which are responsible for flexion of the spine,” explains Derrick, who also works at Mind the Mat, a Pilates, yoga and barre studio with locations in Del Ray, Lyon Park and Virginia Square. To work our upper abs, we did crunches, careful not to strain our necks as we activated our belly muscles to lift our shoulders off the floor.
A Doggone Good Time
Derrick continued verbal instruction as team members let six black furballs unleash their zoomies. The dogs—siblings rescued from Puerto Rico by Maryland-based Coffee and Paws Rescue—raced around the mats, sniffing and licking participants, and played tug-of-war with the resistance bands. A few human participants plopped puppies on their laps as they rolled from a seated position to a supine one, appreciating the distraction from the burn.
As the dogs dashed around, we worked through squats, push-ups and The Hundred, a foundational Pilates exercise that involves breath work and arm pumping while lying on your back with your legs lifted and your shoulders off the mat. One dog paused underneath a participant on hands on knees with a ball wedged between her calf and hamstring as she lifted her foot to the ceiling to recruit her glutes.
Aren’t the dogs a distraction? Yes, but they’re surely good for the soul. “For me, Pilates is about being connected with your body,” Derrick says. “With the puppies running around, it’s hard to do that, but I think it was so much fun. The dogs are so cute, and there’s a lot of ways you still get a good workout in.”
After a cool-down that included gentle stretches such as child’s pose, participants had a half-hour to focus on the dogs while sampling beverages from a pink cart filled with bubbly, fruit-flavored cans of Mingle Mocktails. The after-class refresher varies each week, Kazaba says.
The Details
Catherine Ahrnsbrak founded the all-volunteer Coffee and Paws in 2024, and says all the pups are available for adoption. “These guys are adorable. They were found on the side of the road with their mom. Two of them did not make it; it was a very bad situation,” she shares. “It’s a miracle seeing them all thriving and happy and running around.”
The puppy breeds vary by week and location, Kazaba says. A recent class in D.C. featured Frenchies. Some pups are rescues; others come from breeders, depending on availability. Either way, the dog providers receive a portion of the proceeds from each class, which costs $65 per person.
“The benefit to this is the money that we’re giving to Catherine’s organization is actually going to rescue additional puppies,” Kazaba says. “I think that’s the best part.”
Classes are available to anyone age 12 or older, with three time slots on Saturdays and Sundays. Check the website for times and locations.
I’m equal parts gym rat and animal lover, so for me, this class was barking up the right tree. I got a pet fix and felt sore in underused muscles the next day—my idea of a winning combination.