Puppy Bowl, The Best Super Bowl Alternative

puppy bowl

If you are not a football fan or care much for sports than you won't be excited to watch the Super Bowl today.  However don't fret because there is a good alternative for you, the Puppy Bowl!

The Puppy Bowl is an ‘Animal Planet' TV show that features adorable and cute puppies playing a game of football.  The puppies in  the Puppy Bowl play in a miniature Animal Planet Stadium that looks like a football field and do cute puppy things.

One cool thing is that all the puppies featured in the Puppy Bowl are from rescue and shelters.  This is to raise awareness for people about how they can adopt a shelter dog.

Here is the description from the Animal Planet website:

The biggest event on all fours is back!Puppy Bowl returns for its ninth consecutive year with an all-star, all-adorable cast that's ready to mix it up on the grand gridiron of Animal Planet Stadium. Puppy Bowl IXbrings viewers a loveable lineup that's itching to play in a winning combination of terrier tackles, touchdowns, puppy penalties, fumbles and Fido first downs. Featuring fan favorites like the Water Bowl Cam, tail-gating fans, and the hamster-steered blimp, this year's big game is sure to be a tail-wagger. For the first time ever, viewers can see slow motion replays with the new Cute Cam. And be on the lookout for the hedgehog cheerleaders. Also, don't miss the debut of the puppy hot tub, where puppy players can cool down after tearing up the field. From barking beagles and spunky spaniels to everything in between, we've got the cutest players taking the field on the most action-packed Sunday of the year. Plus, back for another year is the popular Bissel Kitten Halftime Show, guaranteed to bring the house down! And, sideline reporter “Meep the Bird” will return to tweet live updates throughout the game. Follow @MeepTheBird on game day for the latest news, puppy penalties and behind-the-scenes moments from inside the stadium.

The Puppy Bowl is an awesome alternative for animals lovers don't care about watching the Super Bowl or the commercials, which are mostly posted on Youtube nowadays anyway.   They have a Puppy Live Cam you can watch which is totally cute.

The Puppy Bowl will be airing on Animal Planet at 3pm EST on February 3rd, 2013.

Cody, Sierra, and I will definitely be watching the Super Bowl this year since the Baltimore Ravens are playing against the San Francisco 49ers.  Joe Flacco, the Raven quarterbacks  is the spokesperson for the Baltimore Humane Society.

Don’t Fly United Airlines With Your Dogs! They Could End Up Dead!

Can you imagine paying an airline $1800 to fly your dog (not including the airplane tickets for yourself by the way), then your dog ending up at your destination dead?  That's exactly what happened to supermodel Maggie Rizer's beautiful Golden Retriever, Bea, on a United Airlines flight from New-York City to San Francisco.  On her blog Bea Makes Three Maggie posted this:

Two weeks ago, on our way back to San Francisco after a great summer vacation on the east coast, Beatrice lost her life due to the negligence of United Airlines.  I’m writing this with my anger aside, in the hopes that someone looking for advice will read this and not make the mistake of trusting United with their pets as we did.

Beatrice had a perfect health record.  She received a full examination and a health certificate four days before the flight, as is required by the Pet Safe program. This program is United’s branded on-board pet safety program. In addition to Pet Safe’s stringent requirements, we took every extra precaution we could think of.  Both the dog’s kennels were labeled front to back with emergency numbers, flight information and warnings.  Their kennels were purchased specifically for the measurements and design specified by Pet Safe.  We purchased special water bowls which we filled with ice to ensure that the water wouldn’t spill and that it would last longer. We drove the six hours to New York City from our house in Northern New York State, so the dogs wouldn’t have to make a connecting flight.  We paid United Airlines $1800.00, in addition to our plane tickets, to ensure the safety of our pets. Albert and Bea were very prepared travelers.

When we arrived in San Francisco to pick up our dogs we drove to the dark cargo terminal and on arrival in the hanger were told simply, “one of them is dead” by the emotionless worker who seemed more interested in his text messages.  It took thirty minutes for a supervisor to come to tell us, “it was the two year old.”  Subsequently we requested that our dog be returned to us and were told that she had been delivered to a local vet for an autopsy. Whatever thread of trust remained between us and United broke and we then insisted that she be returned to us for our own autopsy by our trusted veterinarian, Shann Ikezawa, DVM from Bishop Ranch Veterinary Center. Over the next two hours the supervisor’s lie unraveled as it became clear that Bea was right behind a closed door the whole time and he had been discussing how to handle the potential liability with his boss who had left and sticking to the divert and stall tactic that they had been taught. Eventually Bea was returned and we drove her to the vet at midnight.

Maggie was obviously very through and Bea was a perfectly healthy dog.  What is most ridiculous about the situation is not only United Airlines negligence but the way they have gone about handling it.  Well… not handling!  Maggie continues:

It will be two weeks since Beatrice was killed by United Airlines and since then United has refused to give us any information about what happened to our beloved little Bea other then, “our internal investigation does not show any irregularities, as evidenced by the fact that your companion dog and other animals on board did not suffer the same fate”.  I’m not sure why the fact that the other dogs were not killed clears United Airlines but, they seem to think it does.

Of the many reasons I don't fly United, this now just gives me another reason to NEVER fly with them.  It's clear United is more worried about a lawsuit (which Maggie should definitely pursue at this point in my opinion) then actually telling the Rizers' useful information, issuing an apology, or giving them Bea.

I am writing this to help make people aware that airlines are incapable of ensuring the safety of our pets.  All it takes is for one employee to not follow the proper procedure and then like me, your dog is dead.

I can’t say exactly what happened to Beatrice on the plane two weeks ago.  If United had been able to be honest, it would have helped us to find closure.  All I know is what the necropsy told us, Beatrice died from heatstroke.  It is said to be an agonizing death.

I can't imagine how heartbreaking this must be for Maggie and her family, since the death of Bea could have been easily avoided.  If you read the entire post on Maggie's blog you can clearly see the airline was extremely embarrassed and obviously was/is flustered by the situation.  I am not sure what United expects to happen with such poor handling of this situation though

The story was been picked up by the auto blog Jalopnik and several other major new publications.  Maggie's post has 191 comments. 1800 Facebook likes, and 207 Tweets as of this writing.

I can only hope that the story gains more steam and more people hear about it.  I would be furious is this happened to Cody or Sierra.

 Rest in Peace Bea