MILTON, Ga. — It’s hard to do yoga’s Downward Facing Dog with a goat on your back or rise into Mountain Pose with a sloth hanging on your shoulders and a pig snuffling at your ankles.
But for people at Love GOGA in Milton, mixing cute, friendly farm animals with yoga is a recipe for increased mindfulness, health and self-care.
Launched in 2017 by Milton resident Cathi Huff, Love GOGA has grown into a successful yoga and wellness business, with thousands of raving fans who sell out nearly every event the business holds each month.
Huff said everything started for Love GOGA when her kids left for college and she wanted to do something using her background in holistic health and her lifelong dream of owning a farm, where she could learn to ride horses.
So, Huff and her family bought a farm and started their animal family with a retired racehorse named Bronx, who once raced under the name “Atlantis Dream” and inspired their name for the property — the Atlantis Dream Farm. Since then, goats, dogs, cats, llamas, pigs and a herd of other animals have joined them there.
Milton resident Cathi Huff founded Love GOGA farm animal yoga at her farm in 2017 after her kids went off to college. Since then, the company has grown into a wildly popular health and wellness business, with fans throughout North Georgia.
“We bought the property seven years ago, and Bronx moved to the backyard, then he started getting buddies,” Huff said.
From the very beginning, Love GOGA’s farm animal yoga classes and events blew up thanks to the internet and TV, leading to over 3,000 hits a week on their website and more than 125 people a week visiting the farm to do yoga.
Marketing Manager Danielle Bartling said Huff’s vision came to life in an organic, effortless way because people really seem to understand what she wanted to share.
“She just combined her love for animals and holistic wellness and mindfulness … it was just like alchemy, no one had really done it that way before,” Bartling said.
But Huff said the company’s true mission of wellness and health didn’t come into focus until therapists and private schools started calling, wanting to hire them for private events.
With events held at the Atlantis Dream Farm in Milton and special events held throughout the North Georgia area, there are countless opportunities each year for Georgia residents to participate in Love GOGA’s farm animal yoga classes.
“We realized that it was more than just goat yoga,” she said. “The third year is really when it became crystal clear to me that this was my purpose.”
Bartling said the sessions’ uniqueness draws people in, even people who practice yoga on a daily basis.
“We take people out of their routine; you’re not going to do farm animal yoga every single day, but you come out to Halcyon on a Saturday, you’re surrounded by animals … they’re silly, they’re so cute,” Bartling said. “The animals help ground you to the moment … you’re really just there with them.”
And, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, people seem to need grounding more than ever, she said.
“People are starving for personal attention and self-care and compassion for themselves,” he said. “The goal for us is to get it to as many people as possible because it’s helped us so much.”
Held at the Halcyon development in Forsyth County each month, Farm Animal Yoga on the Green is one of Love GOGA’s most popular events and nearly always sells out, business owners said.
Today Huff and her staff have expanded their lineup to include a partnership with North Georgia Wildlife Park in Cleveland, Ga., and Halcyon in Forsyth County. Those events, GOGA in the Wild and Halcyon Farm Animal Yoga, are almost always fully booked.
These are bolstered by special programs, like an event they recently had with the City of Milton that featured a sloth, capybara and fennec fox.
To learn more about Love GOGA events and Mindful Seeds, the business’s “happiness project” that will begin teaching mindfulness at the farm in July, visit lovegoga.com/
