Team Ruff and Team Fluff faced off in Puppy Bowl XXI on Sunday, February 9, ahead of the Super Bowl 2025. This was the 21st installment of the heartwarming rescue animal event.
The show had as many as 142 rescue dogs from 80 shelters across 40 states and two countries this year, competing on both teams, which was more than ever before. The three-hour show was broadcasted on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, TBS, truTV, Max and discovery+.
Who won the Puppy Bowl 2025?
Team Fluff won this year’s Puppy Bowl, with a close score of 68-66. The game's final touchdown was scored by Paws Allen, a labrador retriever mix from Buffalo, New York. While Foxtrot won the Most Valuable Puppy Award, the Underdog Award was bagged by Mercury.
The adorable pooches scored touchdowns on a gridiron carpet throughout the broadcast, when they crossed any goal line with a toy in their mouth. The show is a stirring way to raise money and awareness for shelters across the US. The game also showcases adoptable dogs and other pets.
Puppy Bowl referee Dan Schachner opened up about the behind-the-scenes workings ahead of the game, telling New York Post, “Every single year we try to not get delayed by it. It’s very easy to call a delay of game.”
“There’s many different euphemisms we can use like pooch puddle or fertilizing of the field, tinkle on the 20, turd and long,” Schachner added. “There’s a lot of ways that we can describe it in a funny way. But at the end of the day, we have a game to play. So it’s not in our best interest to show dogs doing what they do.”
However, the long-time ref, 50, does know that it is all part of the game. “How we deal with it — because again, we’re trying to show all sides of dogs — is we scoop it up, clean it up as quickly as possible,” said Schachner. “We have a team that’s almost like a NASCAR pit crew that comes in and just quickly scoops it up. You wouldn’t know it was there after a minute, and we resume play as quickly as possible.”
“They are untrained dogs and they will do their business,” he added. “And we just try to move on as much as we can.”
The Puppy Bowl is filmed in New York, and that is where most of the dogs come from. However, there are adoptable dogs from all over.
“Of course, we have some New York rescues, but you name it. Florida, Texas, Phoenix, California, Midwest. This year we have a pup from Nicaragua because we want to showcase some of the overpopulation issues in Central America,” Schachner said.
“We cast as wide a net as possible, and the beautiful thing is these shelters will bring themselves to Puppy Bowl,” the ref continued. “They have no problem transporting these puppies — which is not easy. But they have no problem doing it because the reality is once this dog is on national TV, it will, of course, get adopted right away.”
Schachner added, “But, more importantly, the shelter will receive a lot of attention it might not otherwise have. And all the shelters we work with report a huge increase in adoption inquiries after they are featured on Puppy Bowl. So it’s a win-win.”
Schachner explained what it takes to be part of Team Ruff or Team Fluff, saying, “Just got to be young, cute and adoptable.”
“I think the age cutoff is like six months, something like that,” he said. “So really it’s true puppies. And we want them untrained because we want to show puppies in all of their hectic glory, [which] is the nice way of putting it.”
Team Ruff won last year, overtaking Team Fluff in a narrow match.
