While most sports fans are gearing up for Super Bowl LVI on Sunday, animal lovers will no doubt be cheering on a puppy from a Maine-based animal shelter participating in this year’s Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet.
The event is scheduled to start at 2p.m. Sunday. This year, the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland, based in Westbrook, submitted a competitor, a husky Great Pyrenees mix named Emily. Jeana Roth, the shelter’s director of community engagement, said the network invited the league to volunteer puppies for the event.
“Every year since, we’ve been invited back,” she said.
The network has been offering its own version of the big game for the past 18 years with a tongue-in-cheek take on football, pitting two teams of pooches — named “Team Ruff” and “Team Fluff” – against each other to see whose pups can carry the most toys into their respective end zones for “touchdowns.” Celebrities are getting into the act too, with rapper Snoop Dogg and lifestyle icon and businesswoman Martha Stewart serving as “coaches” for the teams and hosts of the event.
“Puppy Bowl celebrates adoptable pups in all their cuteness and showcases the incredible shelters and rescues, as well as their staffers, who dedicate their lives to helping animals find their fur-ever loving homes,” the Discovery Channel, which owns Animal Planet, said on a website dedicated to the event.
Roth said Emily will be playing for Team Fluff. The segment was filmed last summer, but the results are being kept secret until the broadcast. Roth said Emily has a lot of energy and enthusiasm, making her the perfect team member.
“She’s very athletic. She jumps well. She loves toys,” Roth said.