Dog cites man: Sacramento’s ‘Bark Purdy’ will compete in Puppy Bowl under 49ers moniker

In the media frenzy surrounding the Super Bowl, two Cinderellas have been thrust into a highly engineered waltz: Brock Purdy, the San Francisco 49ers star quarterback who ascended to the highest levels of football and shed his reputation as an irredeemable underdog, and Bark Purdy, a dog.

Bark, a Sacramento Chihuahua mix who the Sacramento SPCA says is 7 or 8 months old, competes next Sunday in Puppy Bowl XX, which airs for three hours on Animal Planet, Discovery and TruTV in the leadup to the actual sporting event. Brock, who the National Football League says is 24, hopes to compete in the actual sporting event, Super Bowl LVIII.

Whether Brock heads to Las Vegas, Nevada on Feb. 11 depends on the Niners’ performance against the Detroit Lions this Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, but Bark is guaranteed play time that day. Kickoff Sunday is at 3:30 p.m. and is televised on Channel 40.

A fluff piece

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Michael Silver has called Brock “a remarkably accurate passer who processes quickly, has a knack for moving in the pocket and extending plays and is unflappable in the face of pressure.” Bark likes to nap. As a Chihuahua and a puppy, he is likely at the apogee of flappable.

The Puppy Bowl social media team has described the dog as “small, but mighty!” Ergo the namesake, who, at 6’1”, is small for a quarterback. However, as the obscure writer Arthur G. Lewis said in an aphorism whose misattribution to a football coach seems to make it doubly apt, “it is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.”

On a dog’s terms, Bark appears to be winning. He spent two months in a foster home with his siblings before he was adopted by a North Highlands man, with whom he enjoys napping. His time in the Puppy Bowl caps off a two-day event on Friday and Saturday of Super Bowl weekend in which the Sacramento SPCA will let football fans adopt a dog for $20 if they show up in football-related clothes. The communications manager for the local animal welfare organization, Sarah Varanini, said Bark was transferred from an overcrowded shelter in Contra Costa County, so he wasn’t born in the City of Trees.

However, denizens of the California capital have still claimed him as a native son, including Fox40 anchor Riley Carroll, who called him a “Sacramento player” in an on-air segment.

Get the name of the dog

In promotional materials, the SPCA has acknowledged a gnawing inconsistency: The puppy’s name is not Bark Purdy anymore. His name is “Jack.”

Is this name change another blow to the dignity of Brock Purdy, who was dubbed “Mr. Irrelevant” as the dead-last 262nd pick in the 2020 draft? This reporter cannot tell you, because The Bee did not attempt to seek a comment from the human football player.