thepuppysphere.com

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Pretty great experience! Hoping staff can coordinate more puppy-participant interaction during socialization so everyone has an opportunity with the dogs

Looking for a bit of joy? This is it

I visited the new Puppysphere Garden City location during its opening weekend using a 2-for-1 voucher. Having previously experienced a session at their Flatiron studio in NYC, which was fantastic, I was genuinely excited to see them open a location closer to home. Unfortunately, the Garden City experience didn’t meet the standard set by the New York studio. The class felt overbooked — there simply wasn’t enough space to move comfortably or fully participate in the yoga portion without bumping into others. While I understand opening weekends come with growing pains, the session lacked structure and organization. Staff seemed unsure of the flow and there was little to no welcome or orientation when we arrived. The yoga segment itself was quite short, leaving a long stretch of unstructured puppy social time. In theory, that’s great — the puppies are the draw — but compared to NYC, there was noticeably less engagement from the staff. In New York, team members actively facilitated connections between guests and puppies, making sure everyone had meaningful interactions. At Garden City, the puppies mostly stayed in one area, and there wasn’t much effort to guide the experience. After about 15 minutes of watching others interact with the same few puppies, my wife and I quietly left — and nobody really seemed to notice. I’m rooting for this location to improve with time and experience. The concept is wonderful, and my past experience shows it can be done really well. But based on our visit, Garden City just wasn’t there yet.

Bring more affectionate breeds please. Had a class with some Shiba Inu puppies and though a beautiful breed, they are known to be very aloof, which was the case here. No point in puppy yoga if I can’t get some puppy cuddles without making the puppy squirm with discomfort. I felt like I had a lower tier experience than advertised, because of this.