Portland rescue hosts puppy yoga to raise funds and find homes

Adoptable puppies got the final stretch in at One Tail At A Time PDX’s adoption center, where a 60-minute yoga flow became part workout, part rescue support, and part matchmaking for dogs who still need homes. The class, held Sunday, April 26, 2026, paired a certified teacher-led flow with dedicated puppy snuggle and play time, a format built to pull people into the rescue’s world while giving young dogs a noisy, hands-on social outing.

The setup was simple and practical: participants paid a $50 registration fee, brought their own yoga mat and water, and had to be at least 12 years old, with minors attending alongside an adult guardian. That structure kept the room orderly enough for puppies to romp, tumble, and wander through the poses without turning the class into chaos for the wrong reasons. In this case, the chaos was the point. The event copy made clear that the instructor led the class while the puppies led the cuteness.

The setting mattered just as much as the class itself. OTAT PDX recently opened its adoption center at 5132 NE Sandy Boulevard in Portland, giving the rescue a public-facing home for events that do double duty as fundraising and adoption outreach. The organization says its All Tails at One Time adoption events run about once a month and can include same-day adoptions, so a visitor who falls for one of the puppies in class may not be dreaming idly for long. OTAT PDX says its animals live in volunteer foster homes, receive veterinary care through Wildwood and Brooklyn Yard, and go home spayed or neutered, microchipped, vaccinated, dewormed, and tested for heartworm.

That rescue-first framing is part of what makes the event more than a novelty fitness class. OTAT PDX says it officially launched in May 2015, was founded by Juli Zagrans, and grew out of the Chicago-based One Tail at a Time rescue established in 2008. The group describes itself as an all-breed, no-kill, foster-based rescue that is nearly all-volunteer run and says it has saved more than 1,800 dogs, 11 kittens, and one pig as of March 2024, with a live release rate of 99%. A March 2025 Portland radio feature said the rescue had already welcomed more than 2,200 dogs into loving homes. For a community that knows how quickly a puppy can steal a heart, the yoga mat may have been only the first step toward foster paperwork or an adoption application.