Philadelphia Eagles help puppies get adopted

Fourteen puppies were adopted at Morris Animal Refuge in South Philadelphia during a “Puppy Bowl Draft” that featured players with names like Tim Tebowwow, Lick Butkus, and Peyton Mutting.

Philadelphia Eagles players  Najee Goode, Ron Brooks, Michael Kendricks, and Terrell Watson, and NFL draft prospect Dion Dawkins of Temple, participated. The football stars cradled the puppies while prognosticating on their theoretical performance in the Puppy Bowl.

The event was put on by Animal Planet television station, which picked up the adoption costs of anyone who left the shelter with a new pet Wednesday afternoon.

One of those was Joann Mauer, who sat in a folding chair at the entrance to the shelter cradling a soulful-eyed brown and white puppy she named Angel.

“She just took to me,” said Mauer, as the pup lounged in her arms amid the hubbub.

Inside, Marcy Castelli and her mother, Phyllis Valentino, also cradled puppies, but they were saying goodbye. They had fostered six of the puppies in their home for four weeks after they were rescued from a high-kill shelter in Georgia.

Castelli said she was delighted that all the puppies had found permanent homes, but her mother was a little sorry to see them go.