Nov. 8, 2015 9:26 p.m. ET

Brandi Freeman felt guilty leaving her dog in her Jersey City, N.J., apartment while she went to the gym. So on a recent Saturday morning, the 27-year-old high-school chemistry teacher met a half-dozen other owners and their dogs in Brooklyns Prospect Park.

Ms. Freeman sprinted, did squats and raced through an obstacle course set up by the class operator, a company called Go Fetch Runall with her Shih Tzu, Franklin, panting by her side on a leash.

He loved it, she says. And she had sore muscles the next day. I guess being distracted by him a little bit, I didnt realize how hard we were running up and down the hills.

There have long been health clubs for people and agility classes for dogs. Increasingly, people are crossbreeding the two and working out with their pets.

If you have certain dogs, like we have a border collie, you really need to exercise them, says Sue Foster of Denver-based Iron Doggy, which sells special leashes that fasten to an owners waist. It just makes sense to kill two birds with one stone.

Nearly 53% of dogs in the U.S. are overweight, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, along with 69% of humans. Dog owners are more physically active than nonowners, an analysis in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health found. But some people arent satisfied with mere rambles to the dog park.

Physician Cathy Hardalo takes her three dogsone at a timeto exercise classes at area parks offered by San Diego-based Leash Your Fitness. The classes attract everything from Great Danes to little seven-pound Yorkies, she says.

One exercise, puppy push-ups, requires the dog to sit, lie down then pop up on command. The owner subtracts every puppy push-up from her assigned 20 or 30 human push-ups.

Marcy at her best could do 13, Ms. Hardalo says of her border collie/Labrador mix. There may not be towel service in class, but theres an endless supply of poop bags, she says.

Leash Your Fitness also offers outdoorsy human-dog excursions like hiking and stand-up paddling. A few years ago, Jill Fernandez and her husband, of Long Beach, Calif., joined a flotilla of a dozen kayaks with people and pooches in San Diegos Mission Bay. The couple and their two dogs were nestled in a large kayak when Annecy, their black Lab, leapt at a swooping pelican and capsized the vessel. Thanks to life vests all around, both humans and canines survived.

Noelle Blessey, co-owner of Thank Dog! Bootcamp, which has 10 licensed operators in the U.S., recalls leading a class in a Burbank, Calif., park a few years ago. An owner set down a dogs leash and her chow/husky mix bolted after a squirrel. Two other dogs followed, and all three of them ended up literally barking up a tree, Ms. Blessey says.

Suzi Teitelman Arab has been teaching yoga to dogs and people for more than a decade. She sells her Doga Dog DVDs to people around the world from her Jacksonville Beach, Fla., home, and says her five pups line up to do poses with her such as, yes, upward and downward dog.

We do a lot of gazing, just looking at each other, doing meditation that way, she says.

In May, 400 people and 110 dogs registered for the Dirty Dog 15K Trail Run in Charleston, W.Va. Given how the number of participants had multiplied over the races 11-year history, the competition evolved from casual trot to dogfight.

The first year, a Jack Russell Terrier won it, says Daniel Todd, who co-directs the race with his wife, Tracey. Now, its usually won by running breedsGerman Shorthairs, Weimaraners.

Owners must keep their dogs within sight and are credited with the humans finishing time. All dogs get home-baked treats; human winners get a set of dog tags.

My wife and I, we dont have any children, so thats our pack, says Anthony Corriveau, a software engineer from Cary, N.C., who has twice run the race with Shannon Johnstone and their three rescue dogs. The couples best long-distance runner is a Lab mix with three legs.

Nationwide, races that allow people to compete with their dogs have grown 24% this year from 2013, according to event-management firm and data provider Active Network. Most of the races are five kilometers, or a little more than 3 miles.

In September, Laura Baune drove nine hours from Lacey, Wash., to The Resort at Paws Up, a vacation spot 35 miles northeast of Missoula, Mont., to run the Canine Classic half-marathon with her border collie/Lab mix, Barkley.

He probably ran a marathon while I ran a half-marathon just because he was going back and forth as I ran, Ms. Baune says.

USA Track & Field, the sports governing body, hasnt sanctioned races that allow dogs on the course for at least a decade, in part due to liability claims of runners tripping over dog leashes, a USATF spokeswoman says. That means no top dogs: Human runners cant set national records or qualify for the Olympic trials without the organizations sanction.

Angi Aramburu, founder of New Yorks Go Fetch Run, is working with a lawyer to license the two-year-old business.

I always say its the only class where youll get a kiss while youre doing plank, she says.

Write to Rachel Bachman at rachel.bachman@wsj.com

Link:
In Yoga Class, Do Dogs Do Downward-Facing Human? - WSJ