“This post contains affiliate links, and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.”
This Sunday, February 2nd is an exciting day for football fans and puppy lovers alike when Animal Planet blows the whistle on their 16th consecutive year of what is, arguably, the most important sporting event of the entire year — the Puppy Bowl!
To celebrate 16 years of incredible adoption stories and tail wagging touchdowns, PUPPY BOWL XVI unleashes more puppy players than ever before during this Sunday’s big game.
Tune in for this special two-hour event to experience sloppy kisses, puppy piles & penalties, epic puppy playtime, and more. Animal Planet audiences will also see the return of The Dog Bowl, the one-hour competition for adult and senior dogs living in rescues and shelters.
We’re told there’s some other big sporting event happening that day. And, while the Super Bowl may have some fancy new technology on the field this year, they don’t have a water bowl cam, a real live hamster wheel-driven scoreboard, or a Puppy Bowl virtual reality experience that let’s viewers get in on the action through the eyes of dog named Buttons, now do they?
The tail-gating starts with the PUPPY BOWL Pre-Game Show at 2 PM/ET and 11 AM/PT, featuring fan favorite aww-nalysis and cuddly commentary from sports correspondents, including the one and only Rodt Weiler, James Hound, and Sheena Inu serving as pre-game show analysts. This year, Animal Planet worked with 61 dedicated animal shelters and rescue organizations representing over 25 states, filling the TEAM RUFF and TEAM FLUFF roster with over 96 adoptable puppies, making this the biggest and most epic game in PUPPY BOWL history!
While many of the PUPPY BOWL XVI pup players have come from shelters and rescues across the U.S., this year’s PUPPY BOWL has more international puppies than ever before with players representing Cartagena, Colombia, St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Toronto. With the help of testing conducted by WISDOM PANEL™ canine DNA test kits, all the puppy athletes go beyond fur-deep to find out what they’re really made of and discover what skills are engrained as a result of their ancestry, and what advantages they can use on the field.
Halfway through the game, the energy will be amped up for the ARM & HAMMER™ Clump & Seal™ KITTY HALF-TIME SHOW. The unforgettable performance by legendary divas Jenni-PURR Lopez & CAT-ira will give audiences a special rendition of ‘Catnips Don’t Lie!’
Aside from puppy fumbles and terrier touchdowns, the real goal of Puppy Bowl is to bring awareness to animal rescue and adoption. Because the show is filmed months in advance of air time, the puppies featured this Sunday have nearly all found homes — but there are literally hundreds of thousands of dogs in shelters across the country still looking for their forever families.
