Playing within the Puppy Bowl requires sacrifice.
Like altering your identify.
For Jake, a 4-month-old shar-pei, that meant being anointed a pastry:
That’s how the canine might be identified when he takes the sphere as a member of Team Fluff (the blue one) on Super Bowl Sunday.
Patty Sevick has a special meals in thoughts relating to shar-peis.
“They’re like potato chips, you cannot just have one,” she says. “You become addicted to them and their personality.”
Cronut, who goes by the identify Jake when he’s residing his standard life away from the cameras, is certainly one of three shar-peis in Sevick’s Cherry Hill home. While his bristly coat vaguely resembles the golden hue of a cronut, she describes the colour as apricot.
Sevick says Cronut, aka Jake, is now an “invaluable part of the pack” of rescue dogs at her home. On Sunday, his gloriously wrinkled mug will even be on full show at Puppy Bowl 2024, the place he may very well be among the many contenders for Most Valuable Puppy.
New Jersey dogs like Cronut are just some of the 131 puppies on groups Ruff and Fluff vying for the Lombarky Trophy at Puppy Bowl XX.
The Animal Planet present, which has change into a Super Bowl custom spotlighting canine rescue teams, is celebrating 20 years since its 2005 debut.
This 12 months’s pups symbolize 73 shelters and rescues in 36 states and territories. The smallest weighs 1.7 kilos. The largest — a Great Dane — is available in at 72 kilos (sure, nonetheless a puppy).
Animal Planet gave Cronut the identify in recognition of one other recent milestone — the tenth anniversary of the Cronut.
French pastry chef Dominique Ansel launched the confection, a stuffed and iced croissant dough molded into the form of a doughnut, at his New York bakery in 2013.
Cronut the canine’s journey to the Puppy Bowl and his “forever home” began at Franklin County Humane Society in Rocky Mount, Virginia, the place he was surrendered by his homeowners.
He later traveled by airplane to Laura Say, president of Shar-Pei Rescue of Virginia, who lives in Key West, Florida.
“They did have a bad reputation — they still do — but they really are sweet dogs,” she says of the breed, which hails from China. “There’s nothing to be afraid of in a shar-pei.”
The breed identify interprets to “sand-skin” in Chinese.
In a Zoom chat with NJ Advance Media, Say wore a shirt commemorating Cronut’s time at Puppy Bowl XX. It’s only one method the rescue has raised money in reference to the upcoming occasion.
She introduced the canine to the October taping of the sport in Glens Falls, New York. It was an extended, 12-hour day for Cronut, who was then 4 1/2 months old.
Shar-Pei Rescue of Virginia, which, like Puppy Bowl, was based in 2005, locations dogs with foster and adoptive households throughout the nation.
Cronut began out with one other foodie identify, Jake Waffles, as a foster canine at Sevick’s home. It quickly turned obvious he’d be a “foster failure,” one other shar-pei she simply couldn’t half with.
“They have this loyalty to the family but an aloofness,” she says. “They love … snuggles on their terms.”
Most puppies featured on the Puppy Bowl will inevitably have been adopted by the point the present airs, because it’s filmed about 4 months earlier.
Sevick, who has been a volunteer with the shar-pei rescue for 12 years, has adopted 4 dogs from the group.
Cronut, now greater than 8 months old, is about to be evaluated to see if he wants entropion surgical procedure to appropriate his eyelids so his eyelashes don’t scratch this eyes — a typical incidence within the breed.
In recent days, the canine has change into one thing of a neighborhood movie star, showing in promotions for the Puppy Bowl.
Haddon Culinary, a gourmand market in Collingswood, lately ran a Cronuts for Cronut sale, donating a portion of proceeds to the shar-pei rescue.
“Jake was there and got to meet his supporters,” Sevick says. “I think there were over 150 people that stopped by to see him.”
Another member of the Puppy Bowl’s Team Fluff:
Fancy.
Margaret Olisky says the 8-month-old canine is listed as a Labrador retriever combine, however she sees some Australian cattle dog in her options.
“She has the most interesting coloring and the longest tail I have ever seen,” says Olisky, describing Fancy as cream-colored with “chocolatey orange spots.”
However, she will be able to’t make sure of her lineage. That’s a part of why Olisky is so excited to see the present air Sunday.
The pre-game portion (which begins at 1 p.m. ET on Animal Planet) features a section revealing every participant’s DNA outcomes.
Olisky, who lives in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, is a volunteer with A Second Chance for Ziva, a canine rescue primarily based in Chatham.
Fancy got here to the Jersey rescue from a litter of six dogs discovered as strays in Orange Grove, Texas.
Olisky introduced Fancy to the Puppy Bowl when the canine was a foster residing in New Jersey.
At first, the canine was overwhelmed by the noisy room. But she warmed up when she noticed all of the puppies.
“She was really great, she loved the other dogs — the bigger the better,” says Olisky, who recollects Fancy turning into “infatuated” with a Great Pyrenees puppy she adopted round.
“It was so funny,” she says.
After the canine’s go to to the Puppy Bowl, her North Brunswick foster household appeared to have missed her fairly a bit.
So a lot so, they welcomed her again to her “forever home” quickly after.
Fancy’s proprietor, Nadia Harrichand, renamed her Laila, and despatched alongside photographs displaying her regular progress from puppyhood towards grownup doghood.
While many of the Jersey dogs within the Puppy Bowl symbolize Team Fluff, there’s an outlier.
He goes by a well-recognized identify — Bob Barker.
The basset hound combine’s actual identify is Eddie, says Rosemary Petriello, founder and president of Jersey Girls Animal Rescue in South Plainfield, which has been sending dogs to the Puppy Bowl for almost a decade.
The present renamed the canine for the longtime host of “The Price is Right” and animal rights advocate, who was 99 when he died in August.
Bob Barker, the lone Team Ruff canine from the Jersey crew, will put on an orange neckerchief in the course of the sport.
Bob, aka Eddie, has totally different coloured eyes — his proper eye is a hanging blue.
“He’s gorgeous,” says Petriello, who fostered the canine.
“I heard he was a little shy at the filming, so I’m not sure how much he’s going to be on camera,” she says. “But he has such a great personality. He has these big giant ears that just flop when he runs. He’s the most adorable thing.”
Another canine from the identical rescue, an 8-month-old German shepherd combine named Biscuit, might be enjoying for Team Fluff.
Both dogs — Eddie is about the identical age — got here to the Jersey volunteer group from the South.
“We rescue so many dogs from the border of Mississippi and Alabama,” she says.
Petriello and volunteers from Jersey Girls Animal Rescue might be having a fundraiser watch party Sunday at Hailey’s Harp & Pub in Metuchen.
Since the Puppy Bowl, the dogs have been adopted, and are actually official Jersey residents.
Bob, aka Eddie, now lives in Sparta, and Biscuit lives in Red Bank.
Puppy Bowl XX, aka Puppy Bowl 2024, set for Sunday, Feb. 11, is a three-hour occasion that airs 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT on Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS and TruTV. The Puppy Bowl might be streaming on Max and Discovery+.
There might be a pre-game present beginning at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on Animal Planet.
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Amy Kuperinsky could also be reached at [email protected] and adopted at @AmyKup.
