The Puppy Bowl is an annual television program that mimics the Super bowl filled with a cast of puppies. All of the puppies that participated in the puppy bowl were for adoption and helped spread awareness about adopting and rescuing abandoned animals from homeless shelters or the streets.

The Bowl usually features two teams every year, Team Fluff versus Team Ruff. For those that have never heard of the Puppy Bowl, the Puppy Bowl first began in 2005 and is always at 2 p.m. as a fun alternative to the people that aren’t huge fans of football. The Puppy Bowl usually lasts around 3 hours and the official Puppy Bowl “rufferee” Dan Schachner returned for his 10th year in a row.

The 2021 Puppy Bowl was aired on Animal Planet and Discovery Plus. The event also featured a national anthem performance by Boys World. For the halftime show, cute baby kittens took over the field doing a variety of different activities.

This year of Puppy Bowl XVII, team Ruff defeated team Fluff with a final score of 73-69 earning the “Chewy Lombarky” Trophy. Team Ruff won with a last-minute comeback scored by Big Boss Paulie, an American Staffordshire Terrier and Dutch Shepard mix, after they sprinted towards to field for a touchdown as the clock ran out.

The Puppy Bowl this year reached 2.1 million total viewers compared to the previous year’s 1.85 million viewers. This year’s Puppy Bowl showed 70 different puppies with a large variety of different breeds all from 22 different dog shelters. At the end of the bowl, all the puppies were adopted and heading home to new homes.