A 4 month old lab mix available for adoption from ASPCSA .

- Just the sort of dog who stands to benefit from the biggest sporting events of the year.

Richard Schlesinger has our play by play

- On this Super Bowl Sunday, of all Sundays,

permit us a touch of heresy with apologies to The Patriots and The Eagles.

Theirs is not the only game in town.

- Let The Puppy Bowl begin.

- This afternoon, there is also this competition of sorts.

Team Ruff verse team Fluff.

90 puppies, playing in the 14th annual Puppy Bowl on The Animal Planet cable channel.

- Jennifer picks up a toy at the 30. She gets the first down and then some.

- That's a touchdown!

- Mango and Morris, Boomer and J.Paw are part of the game

where the rules are simple and enforced by the referee.

- Chew toy.

Morris.

Chew toy

Morris.

- That's right. The referee, Dan Schachner.

- I always say the rules of Puppy Bowl could fit on like one post-it note.

It's basically trag a chew toy into the end zone.

It doesn't matter which end zone.

It could be multiple...

Yeah . You could play for the other team. We don't care.

Intentional growling.

They are all puppies. They've all got their own agendas.

Most of them are not that socialized.

They are certainly not house trained.

And we're trying to get them to play competitive football game.

So you can imagine

- What could possibly go wrong?

- Right!

- Oh no. That's not good.

[ Whistle ] That's a foul on you guys.

Humping the hound.

Ten yards, keep it clean.

I'm watching you, Crimson.

- They play on the specially constructed and easily cleaned field in a Manhattan studio.

Like the human game, there are cameras everywhere.

And like the human game, players are sometimes given penalties.

- Unsports dog like conduct, send you back five yards,

and no belly rubs. I mean it.

- And that's pretty much where the similarity ends.

In this game, the players don't curse the ref.

They kiss him.

- You can kiss up to the ref. It works every time.

- But Dan Schachner is more than just a referee.

- Who is this?

- Oh, this is Biscuit.

- He is providing foster care to one of the players, Biscuit.

She is three months old of uncertain pedigree.

And like all the dogs in The Puppy Bowl , she is looking for a home.

- 100% of the dogs on Puppy Bowl are from rescue groups and shelters across the country.

- How many of them end up getting adopted?

- We have one hundred percent adoption rate.

You imagine. We're in a room with these pups and hundreds of volunteers.

The chances of them getting adopted are very very high.

- The Puppy Bowl was started small, 14 years ago, just a few players in a room in Maryland.

- I know for the fact that the first year it was just a kind of hair-brained idea.

- Touch down!

- Erin Wanner is in charge of The Puppy Bowl now,

and she has watched it grow.

- So how hard is it to put one of these shows together?

- It is a much bigger effort than you can imagine.

We have whole casting process, including a big wall of puppies.

- I'm sorry, did you say casting process?

- A casting process, yes.

We're trying to make sure that we get as many shelters represented as we can.

Then of course we need the right mix of puppies.

- He's from a sanctuary rescue from Virginia.

- We're form Barktown Rescue in Boston, Kentucky.

- This year puppies' come from 48 shelters surround the country,

and from Mexico where Mango was found on the street Puerto, Penasco

by a rescue organization called Compassion Without Borders.

He was brought to their shelter in California before making the trip here.

A trip that would change his life.

Mr. Wigglesworth who looks to be mostly if not all Shar Pei

came from Lori Johnson's Florida Little Dog Rescue in Orlando.

- Florida is prime football recruiting grounds.

They recruit a lot of puppies here too.

She has sent more than 40 in 4 years to The Puppy Bowl.

- It is an honor. It shows that our rescue is doing the rescue the right way.

And we like we're chosen as ambassador to spread the message of adopting.

Mr. Wigglesworth representing his shelter well, although maybe not exactly as a competitor

- Hey, Mr.Wigglesworth, five yard penalty for excessive snoozing.

- Aquaman, Juniper, Iris, and Button.

- Managing all these dogs is a lot like herding cats,

but it is worth the trouble for Animal Planet.

This is the highest rated show all year on the channel,

and it's worth it for the shelters too.

- What will happen at your shelter when The Puppy Bowl airs?

- My phone will blow up.

We'll get thousand of phone calls on Puppy Bowl day, which is great.

So Clyde may already be adopted but he's gonna help hundreds of other dogs get adopted.

- They call it "The Puppy Bowl effect."

- People think you can't get great dogs like this in shelters and rescue and you can.

So we're willing to put the work in The Puppy Bowl to get the message out.

- This show has been so successful at getting puppies adopted,

that this year Animal Planet has started The Dog Bowl.

So older dogs who can be difficult to place get a chance for what Mango and the other puppies have now.

A permanent home.

Mango is now a world away form Puerto Penasco.

He's living with Sydney Baldwin who worked on The Puppy Bowl,

the only game on TV, where there are no losers.