It’s Superbowl Sunday and the Animal Planet Network has their host and their crew ready and rounding up their teams for one of their biggest annual shows to date. The Puppy Bowl.

The Puppy Bowl is an annual show based on the Super Bowl, which is always very highly anticipated. The Animal Planet Network found a way to bring a voice to all shelter animals who have been through many different kinds of abuse, neglect, and much more traumatizing events.

The puppy bowl brings light to all of the animals in rescue shelters who deserve a loving home. The animals that have spent their time in a shelter are usually from a past of abuse and neglect. The ASPCA statistics state that up to 6.9 million animals (both cats and dogs) enter U.S. shelters yearly, and around 920,000 of those animals are euthanized every year. Total Vet’s website states that in 2021 alone, the number of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters reached a quarter of a million.

The network putting these animal stories out into the world have impacted the amount of cats and dogs that are adopted each year. The programs have shown people how easy it is to adopt and find a lifelong companion.

The puppy bowl has also informed people in an indirect way that the proper procedures like spaying/neutering can be crucial to decreasing the number of animals in shelters. Having your animal in proper health with these procedures can drastically help drop the number of animals in shelters by having less animals enter the world as unwanted. While the parents to these litters may be a loving family, they may not be able to handle the litters that can be as big as 12 puppies.

While the Puppy Bowl brings light to the dogs in shelters, the other animals that have been rescued from uninhabitable situations are still in the dark and are in danger. Even though the network has since made a Kitten Bowl to also bring light to their situation, other odd animals are still suffering in shelters and other centers without people knowing their situation which puts them into more danger than the dogs and cats that get more representation.

While dogs and cats, some of the most loving pets, when they’re from a hard past of neglect and abuse, it makes them seen as harder to care for and a burden in some ways. The Puppy Bowl and now Kitten Bowl has brought them into the spotlight to show even if they have a rough past, they’re still the same animals they were born to be, loving and caring companions