Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times At the Barker Bowl, a dog football match held Tuesday morning, few of the dogs seemed to know the rules of the game. It’s been a while since we dusted off the gowns and hit a party in the name of journalism; too long, 760 days too long in fact â€" not that we’ve been counting every agonizingly boring night since we last assumed our alter ego Nocturnalist and hit the town, notebook in hand.
With the sports spectacle of the year invading our environs, a bowl super enough to close off Times Square for a purpose-built sled ride (last time we checked toboggans were not used in football, but what do we, a humble party reporter, know of the finer points of an athletic franchise?) and magnetic enough to induce hundreds of thousands to - willingly - head to New Jersey, we thought it was time. With a party a day until kickoff, Nocturnalist is back.
First stop, the Garden State, which is - despite much slight of hand to the contrary - actually hosting the Super Bowl, to an athletic spectacle rivaling the game itself: Barker Bowl, a dog football match held Tuesday morning at the resplendent Morris Animal Inn, an ultra luxury pet boardinghouse in Morristown.
Through a chandeliered waiting room, past cat suites where felines lounged on four-poster mini-beds watching must-see TV of flitting songbirds on individual tiny televisions, Nocturnalist was led to a sparkling case packed with trophies of which the Seahawks or Broncos could only dream. Cups upon chalices of silver dog show awards were in the case, including Best in Show from the 1943 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, won by Pitter Patter of Piperscroft, a toy poodle shown by Walter Morris Sr., whose descendants run the inn.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times The event raised money for the Animal Welfare Federation of New Jersey. The 54 dogs in doggie day care that day (rates are from $29.95 to $99.95 for a day, which includes hand-baked treats like multigrain pup pretzels) played in two heats: Little dogs played inside, in a room festooned with pompoms and signs cheering them on (“Ra-Ra Arf!†for example). There were referees in black-and-white-striped shirts and “Bowser Beer,†a chicken-broth-flavored dog beverage to enjoy afterward. For the pint-size players, the gridiron was a green mat laid across what normally is a heated canine exercise pool. The big dogs played outside in the snow.
Yet few of the dogs seemed to know the rules of the game. (The event did raise $540 for the Animal Welfare Federation of New Jersey.)
Puck, a West Highland white terrier, however, earned his “quarterbark†moniker. He scored almost every touchdown, doggedly toting a squeezey orange football back and forth between miniature goal posts. There was only one foul: an unscheduled bathroom break by a mutt on the sidelines.
Though each dog had participated in a photo shoot that morning, their pictures then featured on a personalized Most Valuable Pooch, or M.V.P., player card for their owners, few were in fact “most valuable.†They were, with few exceptions, terrible at football. Remmy the Rhodesian Ridgeback stood in the end zone snow, eating it. When Ellie the standard poodle was thrown a Hail Mary pass, she just stared at the ball. But Gialla the lab had a linebacker’s strength to rival Ray Lewis - we know, she used it to tackle Nocturnalist.
