CNN —
For many animal rescue groups and shelters, Super Bowl Sunday is the highlight of their year – not for football, but for the other big game happening that day: Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl special.
The annual televised event features dozens of puppies taking to a scaled-down football stadium and field. A referee (or “rufferee” in Puppy Bowl lingo) oversees Team Ruff (orange bandanas) versus Team Fluff (blue bandanas) as they play for the coveted “Lombarky” Trophy.
The goal is to get the ball into an endzone; it doesn’t really matter which one. But the real point is to get every player on the field adopted into forever homes while promoting shelter and foster pet awareness. For that, Puppy Bowl sports a perfect 19-0 record.
This year’s program features 122 puppies from 67 shelters and rescue groups across the United States and Caribbean.
“We really couldn’t ask for a better platform,” says Chrissy Beckles, founder and president of The Sato Project, a non-profit that rescues abused and abandoned dogs in Puerto Rico and rehomes them on the US mainland. “I can’t think of a single negative for this – only that it’s only once a year.”
Laurie Johnson, director of Florida Little Dog Rescue, agrees. “The great thing about Puppy Bowl is it shows you that you can get just about any type of dog in rescue.”
Johnson, who has a purebred corgi playing in this year’s game, says Puppy Bowl dispels a lot of misconceptions about shelter dogs.
“I would say 90, 95% of the dogs that are in rescue are not here because they failed as dogs. They’re here because humans failed them as owners, and they didn’t do anything wrong to wind up here and they are perfectly wonderful, amazing dogs.”
As veterans of the process, both non-profit leaders have learned to prepare for the inevitable –but welcome– onslaught of interest in shelter dogs and adoption around Puppy Bowl Sunday.
“You’ll see a massive spike during that whole day and then continuing afterwards,” says Beckles, who has been involved with Puppy Bowl for ten years. When she’s not fielding questions about the availability of certain dogs, Beckles observes “a definite increase” in donations and volunteer applications.
“We get calls from all over the country when Puppy Bowl airs asking about our pups,” adds Johnson, now in her ninth year with the show. “There’s been a couple years where we’ve had our website crash. We haven’t had a year where there hasn’t been a very high volume.”
Johnson says the special has brought in not only adopters but also foster homes, transport help, volunteers, and other supporters. “People recognize the name of our rescue because we have been on Puppy Bowl,” she says.
Not just the puppies on the show benefit from the big game. Since Puppy Bowl is pre-taped, many contestants find homes by the time the show airs. When prospective owners reach out about a specific player that is no longer available, rescue groups and shelters can capitalize on that interest and recommend other adoptable puppies and dogs in their care or elsewhere.
“We’ve had people call us afterwards or send us emails with pictures of their adopted dogs saying, ‘thank you for the referral,’” Johnson says. “It’s definitely exponential in its reach of adoptive homes.”
Beckles concurs it has a positive ripple effect: “When you adopt a dog from a shelter or a dog from an organization like mine, you save two, because when that dog gets adopted, I have space to take in another one.”
What you see on TV is the result of months of preparation, which includes rescue groups getting their pups ready for their closeups.
“We do a lot of work on our end ahead of Puppy Bowl to make sure that our dogs are socialized, that they’re happy, that they can handle bright lights and loud noises, and all those things that you see on a TV set,” Johnson says.
In the weeks leading up to the event, Johnson leaves her houselights on longer, turns up the volume on her TV, “accidentally” drops pots and pans in the kitchen, and invites friends over to help acclimate her foster dogs. She also uses similar exercise pens to those used in the holding room at the show.
For Beckles, just getting her satos to Puppy Bowl can be a logistical challenge. The solution means her rescued pups go from living off the streets to flying private.
“There’s virtually no way to fly dogs on commercial airlines right now. So we are chartering private planes to do it, which crazily enough actually works out a little bit more cost-effective than sending them commercially because it’s so ridiculously expensive right now,” Beckles explains.
Not even hurricanes could stop Beckles from getting her pups to the big game. Despite Superstorm Sandy knocking out her power and totaling her car, Beckles still made it to her first Puppy Bowl in 2012. Since then, she says the show has become a tradition in her organization and more than worth the effort.
“The road to Puppy Bowl is definitely not easy, especially for us, but it comes back to us a thousand times over,” Beckles says.
She’s particularly proud of Irwin, “the worst case” she has ever rescued. The puppy had to have his leg amputated after being hit by a car and left to die on the side of the road. With Beckles’ help, Irwin made an incredible recovery, just in time to shine on a national stage.
“For that little puppy to turn around and then be a part of Puppy Bowl was incredible,” Beckles says. “I was very emotional that day watching it.”
It’s fitting the Puppy Bowl star found his forever home with a show business family: Irwin now lives with actors Hilarie Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan on their farm in upstate New York.
Four of this year’s players come from The Sato Project, including Ivan, a “teeny tiny” sato.
Meanwhile, Florida Little Dog Rescue has six puppies competing this year. Among them are Majesty, a corgi; Emma, a Chihuahua mix; DaVinci, a Labradoodle; and Jimmy Kibble, a “Pomsky,” or a Pomeranian-husky mix.
Jimmy Kibble is still looking for the right home, ideally in the Orlando area. Like his late-night host namesake, he likes to talk – “like a husky, not like a Pomeranian,” Johnson clarifies – describing him as “a 25-pound dog with all of the traits of a husky in a Pomeranian body, and he needs somebody that’s going to understand that.”
Based on Puppy Bowl’s track record of a 100% adoption rate, Jimmy Kibble should find the right family soon, all thanks to a game where every player goes home a winner.
Puppy Bowl XIX airs February 12 at 2 p.m. ET on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and TBS and will stream on Discovery+ and HBO Max.
Disclosure: Animal Planet and CNN are both owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
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