Meet the stars in the puppy bowl xxi

John Nowak Gets to photograph all sorts of events for his job: presidential debates, All-Star Basketball Games, Big Film Festivals.

But he gets more questions about Puppy bowl than anything else.

“I have a list of at least 100 people who have asked me to be a free assistant on our set or an extra set of hands if I ever need one,” said Nowak, a staff photographer for Warner Bros. Discovery, the company’s parent of CNN as well as Animal Planet, which has sent the puppy bowl since 2005.

Nowak photographed all 142 of the rescue dogs participating in this year’s Puppy Bowl, which is sent at 1 p.m. 14 a Sunday, a few hours before the Super Bowl. It is the longest-running TV program that increases the attention of the adoption of pets.

This was nowak’s second year to photograph puppies coming from 80 shelters over 40 states and two countries. He took the portraits over four days at an arena in Upstate New York, where filming of the program also took place in October.

“We just want to catch the dogs’ personalities and we want to show their athletics,” he said.

It may seem like a light day at the office — Ice when you see the beautiful end product — but nowak emphasizes to people all the time, it’s not easy to get a 4-month-old puppy to look at the camera or do whatever you want it .

“Sometimes they are so reinforced after being on the field that they do not want to stay quiet at all,” he said. “They just want to jump around, and it’s hard to photograph an animal that is constantly moving in a small dressing room.”

Nowak would get about five minutes with each dog on the sidelines of the TV taping. Dogs and their handlers would have been set up outside his provisional dressing study and waiting for their turn.

“There are very experienced dog trainer coming in or very experienced shelter, and they will say,” oh, this dog is very treated “or” This dog really likes this type of music or respond to these commands. ‘And the other, you get a dog on the set, all these habits just go out the door,’ Nowak said.

Fortunately, he and his team have tested techniques to help dogs focus. “We have our various goodies and peanut butter and we play music. We will cuddle the dogs to try to calm them down, ”Nowak said. “We have never had a dog that we could not photograph.

“But that being said, we have had to do some crazy things. I am on the floor and I am surrounded by toys and because I am the camera, people are like creaking toys right by my ear and in my face. And I’m just sitting there with weird sounds and trying to make the dog look at the camera. “

Nowak photographed the dogs on a clean white background as well as a colored background with some grass so they could run around a bit, he said.

“But when I say Run, they really had like 6 meters with 10 meters to run. So they really had to run on the camera. And if you are a 4 -month -old puppy that is already just super -energy, you won’t run no matter where people tell you. You will do your own things. “

Turfet gave the studio the look of a football field, but Nowak said it also reminded puppies of something else.

“We put the grass down and the dogs were a bit like,” oh, this is perfect. This is grass. I had to pee on it, ”nowak remembered. “So once in a while we would get an accident and we should get up and scoop or mop it up.”

But for all the challenges, the puppy bowl’s photoshoots come with undeniable perks.

“We have a small photo team: It’s me, a digital tech, a photo assistant, a creative director, a photo editor and one (production assistant) are everyone in there, and at one point one of us has a dog in our laps,” Said Nowak.

Do you work with cute puppies while you know the show will help save dogs finding home? It’s hard to beat it.

“We all really love it and we love the dogs,” Nowak said.

This year’s Puppy Bowl players include 11 dogs with special needs, including Jolene, an American Pit Bull Terrier-American Staffordshire Terrier Mix using a wheelchair.

“Jolene was a girlfriend,” Nowak said. “I remember she had a diaper that we started (portrait). She was pretty good. There was a dog last year called Mr. Bean, whom my children are absolutely in love with, and Mr. Bean had only two hind legs. So when they brought Mr. Bean out, he could also stand on his two hind legs and kind of walk. He was just the happiest puppy and so loving. “

A few of the dogs in this year’s puppy bowls are deaf. Nowak and the team would use LED lights to get their attention.

“Sprinkle was the one that was hearing impaired and blind,” Nowak said. “So we had to put gentle hands on her to move her around and clap the ground to communicate with her.”

One of Nowak’s favorite dogs this year was Parsnip, which, like Jolene, was a Pit Bull-American Staffordshire mix.

“Just a beautiful dog that had these blue eyes, and my dog, Wally, is an Australian shepherd, so he has fog -colored eyes,” Nowak said.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the puppy bowl without any punny, football -related names.

Saquon Barky is an Australian Shepherd-Bernese Mountain Dog, named after Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagles’ star that runs back. A few Pomeranian siblings were named Jason and Travis after the Kelce brothers. And Dee-Bone Samuel, a poodle blend from California named after the San Francisco 49ers recipient Deebo Samuel, is one of the two finalists for this year’s Most valuable puppywhich is selected by a fan voting.

For the most part, nowak said, the puppies were playful and well -equipped.

“We are more concerned about, I think, make them more comfortable than anything else,” he said. “So we load them with as many goodies as they can get, and we give them as much love as the whole team will give them.”

When Nowak returned to Atlanta, he came back with more than just good photos.

“I loved every minute with it, but there was just so much dog hair everywhere,” he said with a laugh. “I came back to Atlanta and I could still smell dogs like in my camera wrappers. I was like ‘ah, good memories.’ “

Puppy Bowl XXI will be released at. 14.00 a Sunday and will be simulcast across Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, TRUTV, MAX and Discovery+.