Puppy Bowl XIII Highlights
The Super Bowl is a great American tradition that goes back over half a century, and it’s a time when the most diehard fans and casual watchers come together each year to watch a one-of-a-kind sporting event. But, if you’re a dog lover and a football fan Super Bowl Sunday is twice as nice because it’s also the day Animal Planet’s annual Puppy Bowl appears on TV!
Since 2005, Animal Planet has aired its own annual “sports” event every Super Bowl Sunday, featuring a wide variety of puppies and other animals getting together to play in a space that’s designed to look like a football stadium. But the best part of the Puppy Bowl is the fact that the featured players are all rescue puppies looking for a forever home, so you can enjoy the sheer cuteness of the show and also feel good knowing that it’s all for a worthy cause.
Starting in 2015, the show changed things up a bit by splitting up the puppies into two teams: Team Ruff and Team Fluff. Basically, if a member of either team is able to pick up a toy (or any object really) and carry it into the end zone, that dog scores points for his or her team.
While Team Ruff dominated in the last two Puppy Bowl games, this year Team Fluff came back with a vengeance to score a blowout 93-38 victory over Team Ruff, making it the highest-scoring victory in Puppy Bowl history!
Team Ruff started out strong and never gave up the lead, mostly thanks to a 17-week-old poodle mix named Rory. Rory was on a roll throughout the bowl, scoring an impressive three touchdowns during the first quarter.
However, it wasn’t all about Rory, and there were plenty of other players who also pulled their own (adorably tiny) weight. Team Fluff’s Dawson also put some points up on the board all the Fluff fans watching at home, and Blitz (who appeared to be a golden retriever mix) kept up the Team Fluff momentum by scoring a turnover in the third quarter.
The halftime show saw Kitty Gaga take the stage with the Chicago Rock Cats (who were also up for adoption). There were also rabbit and guinea pig cheerleaders, and both teams had their own mascots: Team Ruff’s rescued screech owl, and Team Fluff’s rescued chinchilla. The game even featured a few rescued dogs with special needs, such as the three-legged Lucky, the hearing- and vision-impaired Winston, and the deaf Doobert.
As the champions of the big game, Team Fluff picked up the first ever Lombarky Trophy (get it?), which looks like a big plush fire hydrant. Surprising no one, Rory the unstoppable poodle mix earned the Puppy Bowl XIII title of MVP (that’s Most Valuable Pup, of course).
But, regardless of the score, the trophies, and the titles, the rescued puppies were the true winners of this year’s game, since it connected so many of them with what they needed most: caring families. All in all, it was another great year for animals, and we can’t wait to see what Animal Planet has in store for next year’s Puppy Bowl XIV!
