Puppy Bowl Decorations & Activities

Decorate the room with these festive Puppy Bowl ideas, or let the kids make the decorations as part of the fun:

Puppy Balloons – Using colored paper or foam, tape ears to your balloon and draw a puppy face on with sharpie. Add helium and a ribbon to create your own pet pups, or tape up as decorations.

Foam Cheering Paw – Get thin craft foam from the store, or use construction paper. Cut a paw shape from two pieces of foam. Glue the edges of the two paws together, leaving the entire bottom unglued for your hand hole. Glue circles to the paw pads, and spell out your cheer on the paw with foam letters. Be sure to let the glue dry thoroughly. If you want to do this as a party activity, you can create the mitts the day before and let the kids decorate them. In a pinch, you can staple the mitts together around the edges.

"Go Pups!" Garland – Cut long paper triangles from two colors of paper, spell out your cheer on alternating colored triangles, then tape to a ribbon and hang.

Puppy Games – It’s easy to convert your favorite party games into Puppy Bowl activities by giving them puppy themes and names. Or try this original game: Puppy Touchdown – Give each player a spoon and a chocolate football (you could use a marble or something else, too). Each player gets on his hands and knees and puts the spoon in his mouth, balancing the football in the spoon. Then, like a puppy, the player crawls across the room holding the spoon with the football in his mouth. Whoever gets across the room first without dropping the ball wins. Anyone who drops a ball must start over.
 

Puppy Bowl Party Snacks

It wouldn’t be much of a wag-your-tail-gate party without lots of game time snacks. Here are some fun recipes the fans will doggone love:

Dog Treat Cookies – Make peanut butter roll-out cookies and cut them with a dog bone cookie cutter to make kid-friendly dog treats.

Snausages – Serve pigs in a blanket, using refrigerated biscuit dough and mini wieners. They look just like the funnily-named dog treats.

Puppy Chow – Serve your favorite kibble-like snack in a dog bowl. Chex mix, chocolate covered raisins and candied nuts all work well.

Nacho Puppies – What would a tail-gate party be without nachos? Serve your favorite recipe in a dog bowl. Top with some chips decorated to look like puppies, with olives for eyes and a refried bean muzzle.

Toilet Water – Kids of a certain age will love this icky idea. Serve lemonade labeled as every puppy’s favorite drinking fountain.

Doggie Bags - Make party favor bags for everyone to take home with a tennis ball, Frisbee or other dog toy, a bag of dog treat cookies and a mini plush puppy.

Puppy Bowl XVIII airs on Animal Planet and Discovery+ on Sunday, February 13 at 1pm EST.