Two puppies that were fostered in West Hartford are participants in Sunday’s bowl game on Animal Planet.

By Ronni Newton

There’s more than one big game on TV on Sunday, Feb. 8, and you don’t even have to be a football fan to enjoy one of them.

When Puppy Bowl XXII airs at 2 p.m. on Animal Planet, pitting “Team Ruff” (in red bandanas) against “Team Fluff” (in blue bandanas) in the quest to earn the “Lombarky trophy,” you’ll see two furry participants that have strong ties to West Hartford, where they spent their formative weeks being fostered at the home of Sydney Lyons and Danny Roth.

One of the West Hartford pups will be a trophy winner, since Maverick is a member of Team Fluff while his sister Nova is on Team Ruff – but in reality both are winners since they have been adopted through the Connecticut Humane Society. And appropriately for representing Connecticut – they look like Huskies. (The mom is a Husky, but they don’t know for sure about the dad’s breed.)

Lyons, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice, which gives her a flexible work schedule, is a dog trainer and veteran at fostering rescue dogs. She also has her own dog, Winston, a pittie mix, who was foster No. 27 – and a foster fail. While she used to foster reactive dogs, Lyons said Winston is “shy and sensitive, and he is better with puppies,” so more recently she has been fostering litters.

“There was a litter of six, and they reached out needing fosters,” she said. She and Roth received the three 6-week-old pups from the Connecticut Humane Society late last summer. They left briefly to be spayed or neutered, but Maverick and his sister Nova, as well as their sister Astrid, all lived with Lyons and Roth for about a month until they were adopted.

The Connecticut Humane Society submitted the applications for the Puppy Bowl, and both Maverick and Nova were selected.

“They were so high energy, it was crazy,” Lyons said. “It was a chaotic month, but it was so much fun.” They were foster Nos. 36, 37, and 38.

Lyons and Roth have a large, fully fenced yard, where the pups could play and tire themselves out. “And we created space in our basement as the puppy room,” she added. She’s grateful to AJ from West Hartford Electric, who responded to an emergency request for the installation of an electrical outlet in the basement so they could set up a “puppy cam” to be able to observe the dogs when they had to leave the house.

“Huskies can be escape artists,” Lyons said, and sure enough one found its way out. Most of the time, however, she said they loved just being together and were happy to play and sleep in their space.

“Our job was really to take care of them until they got spayed or neutered and adopted,” she said. They played in the backyard, took the pups to Nod Brook in Avon to swim, and Winston enjoyed interacting with them in the yard, too.

“Obviously, I wasn’t involved in the Puppy Bowl selection process. My role was fostering and caring for the puppies, whether they were involved in the show or not,” said Lyons.

“In this case, you didn’t need to go to a Husky breeder to find a wonderful group of puppies who needed homes. Fostering helps dogs adjust more easily once they’re adopted into families, and my experience with these puppies was really about helping them feel loved, cared for, comfortable, and safe,” she said.

“My perspective is really about highlighting how important fostering is. Without fosters, many dogs would remain in a shelter environment until they’re adoptable. What I love about events like the Puppy Bowl is that they shine a light on rescue work and remind people that there are amazing dogs of every breed, age, and personality waiting for adoption.”

All three of the Husky pups were adopted, but Lyoms doesn’t have any details other than that she knows the families were well vetted by the Connecticut Humane Society.

Lyons and Roth have since fostered more puppies. Brothers Tip and Rudy (Nos. 39 and 40), who enjoyed playing in the snow in the backyard on the path Roth created for them with a snowblower, just left last week after being adopted.

And while the fostering is about much more than the Puppy Bowl, Lyons said she and Roth are excited to see Maverick and Nova in action on Sunday. “We will be cheering them on from our living room.”

For more information about all of the foster puppies, follow Sydney’s Foster Dogs (@syds_foster_dogs) on Instagram. More information is also available on the Connecticut Humane Society’s website.

Puppy Bowl XXII will air on Animal Planet on Sunday, Feb. 8, at 2 p.m.

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