A personal dedication
For Jane GoodALL
She went into the forest and listened.
She did not go to teach. She went to learn.
The one who listened
She went into the forest without a conclusion.
In 1960, a young woman named Jane Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream in Tanzania with a notebook, a pair of binoculars, and no fixed idea of what she would find. She did not arrive with a theory to prove. She arrived with attention.
What she found changed the way human beings understood themselves. Not because she argued for it. Because she watched. Because she was patient enough to let the chimpanzees show her who they were, rather than deciding in advance.
That quality — the willingness to arrive without a conclusion, to be changed by what you observe — is the quality that Doga asks of every person who steps onto the mat with their animal.
"Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, shall all be saved."
"Nothing real can be threatened."
In her words
The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
What Doga carries forward
The practice of paying attention.
Doga did not begin as a philosophy. It began as an observation. Suzi Teitelman noticed that her dog Coali was already doing something on the mat — something that looked like presence, like ease, like an absence of the mental noise that makes human practice so effortful.
Jane Goodall noticed the same quality in the chimpanzees of Gombe. Not that they were performing. Not that they were trying. That they were simply, completely, there.
The work of Doga — and the work of a life spent in honest relationship with animals — is the same work: learning to stop performing presence and simply arrive in it.
"Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference."
"Love is the way I walk in gratitude."
Roots & Shoots
Every individual makes a difference.
Jane Goodall founded Roots & Shoots in 1991 with a group of sixteen students in Tanzania. The program now reaches millions of young people in more than sixty countries. Its premise is simple: every individual matters. Every action, however small, ripples outward.
DogaDog carries that same premise onto the mat. Every breath taken with an animal. Every moment of genuine attention. Every student who learns to pause before reacting. These are not small things. They are the roots from which everything else grows.
A tribute to every being on the mat
Dogs. Cats. Chimpanzees. Every living being.
This dedication belongs to every animal who has ever arrived on a mat, in a forest, in a living room, or in a life — and changed the human beside them. To the dogs and cats who have sat still long enough for a person to remember how to breathe. To the chimpanzees of Gombe who taught a young woman that the boundary between us and them was always a story, never a fact.
To Coali — Suzi's black cocker spaniel, the original Doga dog. Coali did not wait for an invitation. She was already on the mat. She was already in the practice. She was the practice. Everything that became DogaDog began with watching her.
To Liz Swados — artist, composer, collaborator, and one of the first people to sit with Suzi and Coali in New York City in 2001 and recognize that something real was happening. Liz saw it before it had a name.
To Heinz — and to every student who has ever come to the mat, brought their dog, and been willing to be changed by the experience. You are the practice continuing. You are the roots and the shoots.
From Suzi
A personal note.
I did not set out to build a practice inspired by Jane Goodall. I set out to understand what my dog was doing on my yoga mat — and why being near her made the practice feel different. Quieter. More honest.
I found Jane's work later, and recognized something I already knew. She had spent a lifetime doing what I was only beginning to learn: arriving without an agenda, watching without judgment, and allowing the animal to be the teacher.
This page is not an endorsement, and Jane Goodall has no connection to DogaDog. This is simply a personal tribute — one practitioner's gratitude toward a woman who showed the world what it looks like to truly pay attention to another species.
She changed how I understand what I am doing when I sit with a dog and breathe. She changed what I think it means to be in relationship with an animal. She changed what I think it means to be human.
For that, I am grateful beyond what I can say here.
With love and paws, Suzi Doga Teitelman
"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."
"God is the Love in which I forgive."
Our pledge
Five percent of proceeds from every DogaDog retreat, training, and book sale is pledged to the Jane Goodall Institute in honor of the animals who made this practice possible.
Visit the Jane Goodall Institute →A note
This page is an independent personal tribute by Suzi Doga Teitelman. Jane Goodall and the Jane Goodall Institute have no affiliation with DogaDog and have not endorsed this practice or these materials. The donation pledge is made independently by DogaDog.
Live and Love Like Your Pet
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The least any of us can do is notice. The most any of us can do is act on what we see.
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