Goat Yoga: A Story of Connection, Calm, and Cuddly Goats

Episode 166
For the Love of Goats

When people hear you have goats, one of the first questions they ask is, “Do you do goat yoga?” In this fun and fascinating episode, host Deborah Niemann talks with the person who started it all—Lainey Morse, founder of the original Goat Yoga in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Lainey shares how goat yoga began in 2016 during one of the most difficult times of her life—and how a simple idea for “Goat Happy Hour” transformed into a viral global phenomenon featured on CNN, People Magazine, The New York Times, and more.

You’ll hear how she built her business from her farm to multiple licensed locations across the U.S., what makes goats perfect partners for yoga, and the practical realities—like insurance, zoning, and goat care—that many people overlook when they try to start goat yoga on their own.

Whether you’ve thought about starting goat yoga yourself, or just want to understand why the world fell in love with it, this episode is full of heart, humor, and inspiration.

Transcript – Goat Yoga

Intro 0:03
For the love of goats, we are talking about everything goat, whether you’re a goat owner, a breeder or just a fan of these wonderful creatures. We’ve got you covered. And now here’s Deborah Niemann.

Deborah Niemann 0:18
Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s episode. This is going to be a really fun episode today. This is one of the topics that has been most requested, because so many people, when they hear that you have goats, they want to know, do you do goat yoga? And my answer has always been no, and I’ve been looking for a while to get just the right person on the podcast to talk about this, and who better than the person who originally came up with the idea in the first place?

Deborah Niemann 0:45
And that is Laney Morse, the founder of the original goat yoga in 2016. Welcome to the show, Lainey!

Lainey Morse 0:53
Thanks. I’m happy to be here.

Deborah Niemann 0:55
Yeah, I’m excited to have you, because so many people just kind of think, Oh, I’m just gonna tell the local newspaper that we’re doing goat yoga, and we’ll just throw some yoga mats out there and do it, and they don’t think about anything like insurance and liability and all that kind of stuff. So I’m really excited to be able to talk to you today about this. If you could just start at the beginning and let everybody know how you got started.

Lainey Morse 1:19
You know, it started really from a really hard point in my life. I had been very active my whole life, and moved to a farm. I got my very first two goats. I worked a corporate job, and I started feeling not so great, and I would come home from work every day and just go spend time with my goats, like lay in the barn or lay out in the field, and they would just lay next to me and cuddle me. And I was like, what? I had no idea that goats were this social and loving.

Lainey Morse 1:53
And so I started inviting people over that were just having a hard time in life, stressed, and everybody left happy. So we started calling it goat happy hour. A friend of mine was affiliated with a charity Soroptimist Corvallis, and she said, “Hey, would you consider donating, you know, an event, to our nonprofit”?. And we called it Kids and Kids birthday party. And we had the birthday party, and one of the moms was a yoga instructor, and she’s just looking out into the field. It’s gorgeous out here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. And sunset, she’s like, you know, you should let me have a yoga class out here. It’s beautiful. And I was like, but the goats are going to be all over people. And she’s like, cool. I’m a marketer. I’m a photographer. And so we set up, you know, a time to market it, and we posted it, and within overnight, it just blew up. And, you know, it was in 2016 the presidential elections were going on, and I think everybody was just like, give me a happy distraction. So that’s really how it started and it just snowballed from there, totally changed my life.

Deborah Niemann 3:04
Awesome. How exactly did it become like a business then?

Lainey Morse 3:09
I had my regular corporate job, and I was hiding the fact that I was going viral because I didn’t want my boss to think that I had like loyalty elsewhere, because I really loved my job, and so I would like go to the bathroom and do an interview from Ireland, or go to the bank and make a deposit and do another media interview. It was really getting in the way of my job.

Lainey Morse 3:35
One day, my boss walked up to my office and said, So when were you going to tell me? And he had read that I planned on quitting my job on CNN, so the cat was out of the bag, and we agreed that I would leave, and then his wife would come in and take over, which he kind of always wanted anyway. So it was a win-win for both of us, but that’s really how it became a job was I was forced to do something with it. I had over 2000 people on a wait list to come to my farm and do goat yoga from all over the world. So I said, Well, there’s something here. And so I started working with, you know, all the people that around me that I thought were like the brainiest and the smartest. And so they helped me. My now husband, Sean, he helped me immeasurably with a lot of the just setting it up. I have another friend who helped. And so we just decided that the best route to go with licensing my brand out. I would set up all of their goat yoga businesses, do all their social media, do all their private event coordination, do everything for them, and then all they would have to do is have adorable, amazing events at their farm.

Deborah Niemann 4:51
Okay, so let’s take a step back for a second, because I’m sure when you said your boss saw you on CNN, everybody’s going, Oh my gosh. How did she get on CNN. So how did that happen?

Lainey Morse 5:04
My husband had suggested that I took the pictures of the very first goat yoga class, and I had a magazine called Modern Farmer, and he suggested that I send those pictures to that magazine. So I did, and they responded almost immediately, and they were like, This is adorable. And so that was the first story, an interview, and then the Oregonian picked it up. And then from there, my phone just started ringing off the hook. I had like, 30-40 emails a day. The New York Times came out to our farm. We were in People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal. It’s tough to find a media outlet that goat yoga hasn’t been in and mind blowing.

Deborah Niemann 5:48
Wow, that is amazing. So when you say it went viral, you were not kidding.

Lainey Morse 5:52
No, you know, that was nearly 10 years ago, so now going viral is much more mainstream, but back then, it was like, I don’t know what to do with this. I even, like, Googled, what do you do when you go viral? And it was kind of a lonely spot, because who do you ask for advice? Because nobody else is was in your shoes. So it was very fun, crazy goat yoga ride.

Deborah Niemann 6:15
Yeah. So have you ever thought about, what is it about goats that attracts people so much like instead of puppy yoga or kitten yoga or whatever.

Lainey Morse 6:24
You know, I think it’s the unexpected about goats. When people come to my farm and they sit down on a yoga mat, the goats will just lay down next to them and cuddle up, and they’re shocked, because they usually don’t have interaction with goats like that. They’re at a petting zoo. They’re feeding them treats, and the goats are, you know, just chaos, because they’re just food driven. So I don’t let anybody feed my goats treats, because when you walk into my farm, they look at you and go, Oh, you’re here to love me. And then they just walk right up to you and want love as long as you love them, they immediately accept you into their herd. You’re one of them, and they follow you all over the place. And I think it’s just they’re a lot more loving and social than people realize that they are.

Deborah Niemann 7:13
Yeah, I’m so glad you said that you don’t let anybody give your goats treats, because if anybody’s listened to my podcast, much, they know I am very much into goat nutrition and good nutrition for goats. And so many people wind up with overweight goats because they equate food with love, and they are giving their goats treats that wind up making them overweight and sometimes even obese. And so I love it that your goats just walk up to people and want to be loved, no food bribes required.

Lainey Morse 7:45
Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve been on our social media, but I just have tons of videos of just lots of human and animal snuggling action going on, and it’s really beautiful.

Deborah Niemann 7:55
So I know so many people talk to me about this, like, oh my gosh, you’re missing out on a gold mine. You should be doing this. It’s so easy, which nothing is ever easy like that. So what are some of the behind the scenes things about goat yoga that people don’t think about?

Lainey Morse 8:14
I think I’ll give you two examples. One is just in my heart that I have a hard time with. I only have 12 goats. I have very small classes, because I believe in having a good goat to human ratio, and usually my goats will just go snuggle up with people. But sometimes a human doesn’t get a goat on their mat, and it makes me feel so bad. But you know, goats are attracted to smiling people. That’s in the small Smithsonian Magazine and online science. And I have to think that they didn’t because they weren’t smiling. I don’t know, but it always makes me feel bad when people don’t get that interaction that they they’re wanting. One of the harder things of goat yoga is, depending on what state you’re in, finding liability insurance, that’s a big problem for many, many of us. Those are my two things that stand out in my head the most.

Deborah Niemann 9:13
Okay, could you talk a little bit more about insurance? Because that’s one of the things I’ve told people, you know, like my insurance carrier wouldn’t cover this. And I could only imagine most yoga instructors if they contact their insurance company and said, I want to do yoga with goats, a lot of their insurance companies are going to get “uh,uh….”

Lainey Morse 9:32
A lot of the insurance companies are dropping a lot of any type of animal experience because maybe health, types of issues, disease, I have found that a lot of insurance carriers that will ensure horse stables will also ensure goat yoga. And so that’s one of the little tricks that I’ve learned. Every state is different. Some states are like, yep, we’ll cover. And then others are just I’ve had to just not even be able to license in some states because they just don’t allow it.

Deborah Niemann 10:06
So okay, so how do you balance the needs of the goats with the needs of the participants?

Lainey Morse 10:12
Well, there’s really not much balancing, because as long as the goats are getting love, they are super happy. And I find that the same thing with the humans. So it’s kind of a win-win for both of them. So there’s not really much to balance. I don’t force any type of experience when people attend my class. I know some people, you know, they want a goat on their back for a picture. I don’t do that. When goats grow up, it might be cute as babies, but when they grow up, they’re heavy, and if they still are wanting treats, and they’re going to jump on people, I’ve had people come to my class and show me pictures of their friends that have went to other classes, and they’ve got bruises all over their back and it looks like they got hit by a car. So I’m in for a very organic experience. If the goat wants to participate and go up to a human and lay down on their mat or then that’s what happens. But I don’t push them to do anything. I respect them, so I don’t believe in using treats as a reward.

Deborah Niemann 11:17
Okay? And do you tell people ahead of time not to bring treats to the classes.

Lainey Morse 11:22
Yep, absolutely. And we have lots of apple trees, so I have to always say, like, okay, here are the rules. If you want them to jump all over you, try feeding them.

Deborah Niemann 11:31
Yeah? Like, so you tell people, like, not to feed them the apples and stuff

Lainey Morse 11:36
Absolutely. Yeah.

Deborah Niemann 11:37
So, other than just spending a lot of time with the goats when they’re babies. Is there any other training that you have to do with the goats?

Lainey Morse 11:45
We, you know, live out in the country, and we don’t go many places, just because we have so many animals, and we have a farm sanctuary, and I have found that I just don’t want to go anywhere else other than spending time with the goats, and we have experiences almost every day of the week here, so share the goat love and have people out here, and it’s just a wonderful experience.

Deborah Niemann 12:13
So I know most of the pictures I’ve seen of goat yoga across the country that’s usually Nigerian dwarfs, which makes sense, because they’re small. Have you seen people with larger breeds doing goat yoga?

Lainey Morse 12:24
Yeah? Me.

Deborah Niemann 12:24
Okay.

Lainey Morse 12:26
I have a heart for Boer goats. So the meat goats of the world. They’re my favorite breed. I feel that they’re the best goat yoga goats. It takes them a longer to kind of calm down from their younger self, but once they reach about three, they stare into your soul. And I ask people who’s your favorite goat? And they always tell me that it’s my Boer goats.

Lainey Morse 12:52
So I have a new guy right now. His name is Levi, and he’s two and a half, and he’s like a giant toddler with horns. I don’t usually have horned goats. He’s my first one, and so I’ve been training him, going out and just sitting down on a yoga mat and just spending time with him. And so it does take some time. Sometimes with certain goats, I have other goats who are like, severe introverts, and so they’re like, Nope, I want nothing to do with that.

Deborah Niemann 13:23
So you mentioned having a Farm Sanctuary. Does that mean that a lot of the goats who participate are rescues?

Lainey Morse 13:30
Not all of them, we either rescue or adopt, and we do not breed at my farm, I do not trust myself. If I had babies, every single one would be special, and I would never get rid of one, and I would have 1000 goats. So no babies for me. We just started a nonprofit actually called the No Regrets Farm Initiative, and part of that mission is rescue animals and fosters, which will probably be different than my therapy goats. But you know, it’s something just dear to our hearts that we just love animals, and so we want to help more and see what we can do here. And we do have a few rescues right now, but most have been adopted. And so we’ve had them since they were babies. And so every single day, that’s all we do in our spare time, is spend time with the goats so they get very used to people and very loving.

Deborah Niemann 14:21
Are there any particular benefits or feedback people have given you about the benefits of attending the goat yoga classes?

Lainey Morse 14:29
Oh, absolutely. I think the biggest one is that, you know, it’s not healing diseases, but it is giving people a happy distraction and pulling them out of doom scrolling and reading the negative news. And you know, the world is a hard place to be right now, and I think every chance we can get, we need to find what makes us happy and do more of it. So goat yoga appeals to any animal lover. We say you don’t have to do yoga. It’s not mandatory. But what is mandatory is snuggling animals. And that really helps people get out of their own head and put their problems, you know, at the gate and just disconnect from the craziness of the world.

Deborah Niemann 15:10
Okay. Do you advertise anything other than goat yoga? Like you said, somebody doesn’t have to do yoga. Do you have just like goat cuddle times?

Lainey Morse 15:18
Yeah. We call it Goat Happy Hour. I trademarked it a while ago, and it’s just basically what it sounds like you’re going to be happy for an hour. And I take people for a little farm tour and teach them how to be a goat shepherd, and I leave them on our five acres of farm, and they get all the goats to themselves, and they can just chill out and soak in the goat therapy.

Deborah Niemann 15:41
That is so cool. Now, have you had any people critical about goat yoga or say anything negative about it?

Lainey Morse 15:47
Funny, you say that. Last week, I just posted something about I saw something on Reddit that said, Hey, I’m coming to town, and it’s my town, and what is there to do? And I said, Hey, you should come to my farm and do goat yoga. And they said, “You know, I did that once, and it was really boring. I thought it was too expensive.” And I was like, but you know, you can’t win them all. Not everyone is an animal lover.

Deborah Niemann 16:11
Yeah, I love the fact that you’re not actually breeding goats, that you’re using rescues or adopted goats, because that’s the only criticism I’ve ever heard, is, I’ve heard people say, you know, Oh, you think this is cute, but they’ve taken the babies away from their mothers, and it’s unnatural and this kind of stuff, which, of course, that would never have to be the case like so you take them away from their mother for an hour, or bring their mother in there with them. But with the way you’re doing it, with the rescues and adopted goats, then that’s completely irrelevant to that?

Lainey Morse 16:41
Yeah, most of my goats are seniors now. They’re still the same goats that I started goat yoga with in 2016 so they’re getting arthritis, but they’re living the best goat life possible. Yeah. So that would be a criticism that I hear quite often is, you know, the meat and dairy farms are cranking the babies out every year. But you know, that’s why it’s not my job to breed goats. I can adopt a rescue.

Deborah Niemann 17:06
Yeah, exactly. So how has goat yoga evolved since you got started?

Lainey Morse 17:11
Other than that, more people know about it. I think it’s really stayed consistently, like, we’ve branched out and created, like, other experiences, like, I’m starting to mix art therapy and animal therapy. So we do things like, it’s called goats and glass class. So it’s a stained glass workshop, so we pair that with a goat happy hour. So whatever I can pair a goat happy hour with, I’m like, Okay, let’s do this.

Lainey Morse 17:40
And then some of my other locations will do horse carriage, goat yoga, pizza, wine pairing, all kinds of really unique things. But as far as the setup of the actual goat yoga class, it has stayed the same because I haven’t felt any need to want to change it, because it works. People come and they’re like, this was magical. I know it might sound crazy, but it really does connect people, and I wouldn’t change a thing

Deborah Niemann 18:09
That sounds so cool. So just before we started recording, we talked about the difference between franchising and licensing, because you do help other people now who want to get started in goat yoga, and don’t want to completely go it alone. Can you talk about how you help farmers and goat owners get started with goat yoga classes?

Lainey Morse 18:29
Yeah, sure. So what we look for are other people around the US that have beautiful properties and very loving and social goats, or maybe they don’t have goats yet, but they want to. I partner best with people who either have full time jobs and don’t have time, or they have kids, you know, and the kids have all kinds of things, or they don’t know how to do social media and business. So I know how to do all those things. I love to do it, so it’s the best job in the world. So I do all the back end, private event coordination, social media, website, building their website for them, customer service.

Lainey Morse 19:08
So basically, all they have to do is put on the goat yoga classes. And it has worked wonderful. Before the pandemic, we had 18 locations around the US, and now we’re down to eight, and I feel like it’s a good number. And all of these locations have been with me almost since the beginning, so we work really well together. They have a focus of wanting to help people, and they believe that this is a animal therapy. They’re big mental health advocates. I didn’t partner with anybody who was like, I want to make some money, because that’s really not – we’re not getting rich doing this, and really the only reason we are is because it connects with people, and it’s in our heart to do that.

Deborah Niemann 19:53
Yeah, exactly. So if somebody does want to get started doing goat yoga on their own, what advice would you have for them?

Lainey Morse 19:59
Um, well, I would say check your zoning first to where you live, because that could be a big catastrophe if you get it all set up, and then all of a sudden the county comes in and says, shut it down. That’s happened many, many, many times. I would start there first. Just go and talk to your county. Some people just start it and say, you know, maybe I’ll wait until they come to me and get in trouble. But I would also check where you live is important. If you do not live near a lot of people, you’re probably not going to do very well.

Lainey Morse 20:35
We kind of consider you need at least 2 million people to draw from around you within, like, an hour, or you won’t really be able to do this full time, part time, maybe one class a weekend, you know, or a month if you’re in a smaller town. But population matters and demographic matters. I think a lot of people out in the country who already live there. They’re not your demographic. You need to be like Seattle. I would love to have a location in Seattle. Those types of places are really great.

Deborah Niemann 21:11
Okay, is there anything else that you think people should know that we haven’t covered yet?

Lainey Morse 21:15
I think we’ve probably covered everything. But if anybody is interested in becoming a location. You they can contact me at info at goat yoga.net.

Deborah Niemann 21:24
Okay. And I think people can also find you on Instagram and Facebook,

Lainey Morse 21:28
Yep.

Deborah Niemann 21:29
What’s your handle on there?

Lainey Morse 21:30
It’s either no regrets farm, that’s my farm, or just goat yoga,

Deborah Niemann 21:34
Okay, well, I guess that’s the advantage of being first, is that you got the simple, straightforward name.

Lainey Morse 21:40
Yep.

Deborah Niemann 21:40
All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been terrific. I’m so glad that I finally found you and you were on the show today.

Lainey Morse 21:50
Thanks. Thank you for having me. It was fun.

Deborah Niemann 21:53
And that’s it for today’s show. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to hit the subscribe button so that you don’t miss any episodes. To see show notes, you can always visit fortheloveofgoats.com and you can follow us on facebook@facebook.com/lovegoatspodcast. See you again next time. Bye for now you.