Before the Super Bowl kicked off on Feb. 2, an even cuter sporting event took place. Puppy Bowl X aired on Animal Planet and displayed puppies, kittens, and even penguins, having their own version of a football game.

 This is the tenth anniversary of Animal Planets  Puppy Bowl, and this year they put on quite the show. On top of just the puppy players they had penguin cheerleaders, and during the Kitten Halftime Show they had internet sensation Keyboard Cat playing Bruno Mars songs to mimic the real halftime show later that night. “The whole show was really cute,” said junior Elizabeth Dinneny, “the puppies playing were my favorite part.”

 The concept for the Puppy Bowl is simple. There are between 12-15 puppies on a simulated football field at a time (with 66 puppies altogether), with toys scattered around the field for them to play with. This goes on for two hours,  with lineup changes every so often to give the dogs a break. When a puppy happens to walk  across the goal line with a toy they score a touchdown and the fake audience cheers. There is even a referee to make sure there is no  foul play among the pups.

 A new feature to this years Puppy Bowl is that the puppies who are playing are orphaned and up for adoption.There were 37 agencies that provided puppies to play. “ It is awesome that they have rescued puppies playing. It brings attention to the importance of adopting rescue animals,” said junior Natalie Bertsch.

 This year’s Puppy Bowl had record viewers  with 13.5 million people watching the program. It hardly rivals the Super Bowl’s 111.5 million viewers, but it is still impressive. Also impressive is the approximately 300,00 tweets mentioning it and 103 total hours of puppy footage shot.

 The show can be for humans and animals alike, and can be good quality time to spend with your pets. “I mostly watch it for my dog,” said Bertsch, “he likes watching it and really gets into it.”

 Football is not for everyone, but many found the Puppy Bowl a fun alternative to the Superbowl. “It is just really fun to watch,” said Dinneny, “and it was a better game than the actual Super Bowl this year anyway.”