Bakersfield’s organization of Pet Matchmaker Rescue CA held its semi-annual goat yoga event, on Oct. 10. It was held outside, and participants were told to separate themselves six feet apart to keep with the regulations for social distancing.
Pet Matchmaker Rescue is a non-profit organization that rescues animals and nurses them back to health. They also strive to reduce the number of animals euthanized here in Kern County and find animals their permanent forever home.
The event was held in time sessions where people had the choice to sign up for different times that worked for them.
One of the participants, Melanie Sarcen, said the organization hasn’t changed much since the COVID-19 lockdown “but just [except for] social distancing.
As people came in, they were greeted by goats and some sheep. Participants were able to pet, play, and feed the goats in the middle of the yoga session as long if the goats came up to them you.
Some participants that came out had done goat yoga before, but there were also some first timers as well.
“This is my first goat yoga, but I have been doing yoga for at least a year. This is pretty much as I expected when the instructor had told me about it before,” said Carla Hohm.
Some participants admitted that they have barely began to step their feet in the water when it came to going out again since the statewide lockdown.
“We heard about this event through Facebook. This is our first time coming to this organization’s goat yoga. I am barely opening up to going out so when I saw this event, I thought It was a great opportunity,” said participant Kailyn Phelps.
Director of the Pet Matchmaker Rescue, Morgan Sokolow stated, “We wanted to do this to give people a chance to have some type of normalcy in these hard times. Not to say that goat yoga is not a normal thing.”
Sokolow also mention the organization rescues their goats and make sure their animals are healthy before hosting the Goat Yoga event. “So, this just seemed like a perfect time,” she said.
Sokolow also said that the goats will to a new home up in Tehachapi the following day of the event which participants said they were pleased to hear.
Pet Matchmaker Rescue hold events to raise money to continue to rescue animals. They will be holding a movie night on Oct. 30 where people can come and watch a movie outside at night and have a petting zoo available for people so they can pet animals.