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Dan Schachner is an expert referee whose important job hazards embody getting bitten and peed on.
For 13 years, Schachner, 49, has been the ref for the “Puppy Bowl,” the annual occasion that occurs on Super Bowl Sunday earlier than the massive recreation.
(It will likely be simulcast 2 p.m. Feb. 11 throughout Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, Max and discovery+.)
“The most challenging part of the job is coming up with different ways to say the same thing,” Schachner, who is predicated in Brooklyn along with his spouse and teenage sons, advised The Post.
“You know how the Eskimos have 50 different words for snow? We have a million different ways to say ‘piss interference,’ ‘fertilizing the field.’ So, coming up with new and interesting calls is definitely a challenge.”
During the Puppy Bowl, untrained puppies on Team Ruff and Team Fluff face off in a chaotic skirmish – all in an effort to get them adopted by viewers (they’ve a one hundred pc adoption price, Schachner stated).
This year’s Puppy Bowl will characteristic 131 dogs from 73 shelters and rescues, representing 36 states and territories.
And, for the primary time, Schachner himself is even adopting a furry member of the family – a puppy named Whistle, who will likely be his assistant referee in the course of the massive recreation.
He stated that he always must be prepared for something.
“You’re watching untrained puppies on a field with chew toys. So you’re constantly being surprised,” he stated. “I’ve seen dogs leap a foot and a half within the air, after I didn’t assume they may. I’ve had dogs determine to decide out of taking part in, and simply hang around snoozing. I’ve had dogs that determined to leap off the sector and right into a digicam man’s lap.
“I’ve had dogs put their little snouts in my pocket and steal my penalty flag … we’re constantly on our feet.”
The discipline is the scale of “a large living room,” he stated, and the Puppy Bowl requires a 100-person crew that features digicam and lighting techs, in addition to a group of animal wranglers and vets.
“It is a tremendous operation,” he stated.
Among the 131 dogs, “We can’t have more than eight-to-10 on the field at once. So, subs are coming in all the time. If a dog seems too tired or too rambunctious, we’ll sub them out,” he defined.
As for penalties, he stated he misplaced rely of what number of he offers per recreation.
“A lot of the [penalties] will not get shown. There’s two penalties, and we will throw the flag for it, but they often get edited out [of the footage],” he stated. “Because, if we stopped to show them, the game would be six hours instead of three. One is for excessive cuteness. That’s called all the time. And there’s a penalty for hydration of the field, piss interference, tinkle on the twenty…”
Schachner stated that he’s “neutral” for the precise Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
“In past years, I go for whichever is animal-themed. So if the Lions had made it in, I would have been all for the Lions,” he stated. “This yr [the teams] are each pink. Dogs can’t actually see pink. If I’m a canine watching the Super Bowl and each groups are pink, dogs are partly coloration blind. Red’s not on their spectrum.
“So, they can’t tell the difference.”
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