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Furballs on the field: Puppy Bowl always a tail-wagger

Patrick Ryan
USA TODAY
'Puppy Bowl XII' airs Feb. 7, 2016.

NEW YORK — If Peyton Manning bit the ref, he'd spend Sunday's Super Bowl on the bench.

But there are no penalties called for the cuddly canines playing in Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl XII.

"Touchdown! That was quite a drive," referee Dan Schachner says, scooping a nippy Jack Russell Terrier named Darby off the mock football field. "Whoa, my hand is not the ball. It doesn't count if you drag this in for a touchdown," he grins, before passing the white-and-brown-spotted pup off to a handler at the edge of the stage.

Schachner landed the "coolest job in the world" five years ago, when he sent Animal Planet an audition tape of himself officiating "scrimmages" in dog parks around the city. "People thought I was nuts, but it worked," Schachner says. He admits that long shooting days such as these can be "ruff," but "when it actually airs, it must be like what Santa Claus feels on Christmas Day."

This Sunday's Puppy Bowl (Animal Planet, 3 p.m. ET/PT) boasts a starting lineup of 49 puppies from 44 different animal shelters and rescue organizations nationwide. Every year, the roster is whittled down from piles of "head shots" — pictures of puppies standing next to soda cans — that executive producer Melinda Toporoff receives through the summer. The chosen pooches and their guardians are then flown out to New York in October for a three-day taping.

'Puppy Bowl' unleashes virtual-reality experience

By the time the Puppy Bowl actually airs in February, nearly all the star players have already found homes. Frederick, Md., resident Phil Marsh and his wife, Kristen, adopted Samoa and Cream Puff, a pair of shepherd/husky-mix siblings, from a Baltimore rescue last year. A week later, they learned the dogs had made the team for this year's "game."

"This is the first time they're really interacting with people and other dogs," Kristen says, holding a visibly tuckered-out Cream Puff. It was a long day for the 12-week-old pup, who arrived at the Midtown soundstage where the Puppy Bowl shoots at 8 a.m. and wouldn't leave until 9 that night. "She could really use a nap," Kristen adds.

Like Sunday's face-off between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers, the Puppy Bowl is a less intimidating match-up between "Team Ruff" and "Team Fluff" players, who playfully chase and tackle each other into the end zone. But unlike a real football game, bins of squeaky chew toys and stuffed footballs line the miniature field, and there are sporadic breaks to clean pee and poop off the turf.

Chicken cheerleaders, a "streaking" tortoise and a halftime segment starring kittens will also fill the two-hour slot, which has gridiron rivals in Hallmark Channel's Kitten Bowl and Nat Geo Wild's Fish Bowl.

"It's a group of puppies on a mock football field trying to score touchdowns without their even realizing it," Toporoff says. "It's just cuteness overload."

 

 

 

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