My daughter has been asking for a dog since she could talk. We’re not getting one. So when I saw a class called Painting with Puppies running in St Kilda over the school holidays, I booked it partly to buy myself another year of “maybe when you’re older.”
It’s run by Puppy Yoga Melbourne, a program tied to a Victorian breeder called Homestead Puppies. They pop up at a few spots around the city — St Kilda, Richmond, Port Melbourne, Mornington, Geelong — and the puppies on duty rotate depending on which litter is old enough that week. Ours were golden retrievers. Ask before you book if your kid has a specific breed in mind, because you’re at the mercy of whoever’s whelping.
Sessions book out fast, close to a week ahead when we tried. Kids need to be five or over, and there’s no bystander ticket for a parent who just wants to watch — you’re either in the room paying, or you’re outside.
Walking Into a Room Full of Puppies
We turned up and there were seven or eight puppies loose on the floor, chasing a tennis ball like it owed them money. For young dogs surrounded by strangers, they were unbothered by pretty much everything — picked up, rolled over, photographed from six angles, none of it registered as a problem for them. One woman stayed in the room the whole time, and when she noticed a table without a puppy at it, she’d just walk one over.
Nobody touched a paintbrush for the first fifteen minutes. Every adult in that room had a canvas in front of them and a puppy in their lap instead, and the staff clearly expected that, because nobody hurried us along. At one point the same woman took a few photos on my phone, which meant I actually showed up in a picture from the day for once instead of just holding the camera.
The Painting Itself, and What an Hour Actually Buys You
My daughter’s painting came out half golden retriever, half smudge, after a puppy walked straight across the wet paint. She didn’t care. If you want your kid to come home with something gallery-ready, this isn’t that. If you want an hour where she forgets to ask if anyone’s filming her, it does that fine.
The hour goes quicker than it sounds. Once you take out settling in, the puppies doing whatever they want, and the photos, actual painting time is maybe twenty minutes. A few other parents said the same thing on the way out — lovely, just short.
It’s $79 a head, and that covers everyone in the room, not just the kids. Four of us went, so the total landed well over $300 before we’d even got back to the car. I did the maths at the counter and decided not to say the number out loud in front of my daughter.
This isn’t going into the regular holiday rotation. Once a break, maybe, if she asks enough times.
Would We Go Back
Ask me again next holidays and I’ll probably say yes, mostly because she still brings it up. That’s about the whole review. It’s a lot for an hour and you’ll barely paint anything, but if your kid is as dog-obsessed as mine, book one session before you plan a whole week of Melbourne school holidays around it.