Accidents happen.

Puppy Bowl 2025 referee Dan Schachner revealed behind-the-scenes secrets about the annual event that happens right before the Super Bowl — including how they handle the furry competitors inevitably having mishaps on the field.

“Every single year we try to not get delayed by it,” he exclusively told The Post. “It’s very easy to call a delay of game.”

“There’s many different euphemisms we can use like pooch puddle or fertilizing of the field, tinkle on the 20, turd and long,” he continued. “There’s a lot of ways that we can describe it in a funny way. But at the end of the day, we have a game to play. So it’s not in our best interest to show dogs doing what they do.”

But Schachner, 50, noted that Puppy Bowl accidents are unavoidable.

“How we deal with it — because again, we’re trying to show all sides of dogs — is we scoop it up, clean it up as quickly as possible,” Schachner explained. “We have a team that’s almost like a NASCAR pit crew that comes in and just quickly scoops it up. You wouldn’t know it was there after a minute, and we resume play as quickly as possible.

“But they are untrained dogs and they will do their business,” he pointed out. “And we just try to move on as much as we can.”

Puppy Bowl XXI is taking place Sunday, Feb. 9, before the 2025 Super Bowl showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The annual three-hour TV event will feature 142 rescue puppies — more than ever before — from 80 shelters across 40 states as they compete in the cutest competition of the year. Eleven special needs dogs will take the field this year as well.

Schachner told The Post what the “requirements” are for the pups who compete on Team Ruff or Team Fluff, with the overall goal of being adopted by viewers.

“Just got to be young, cute and adoptable,” he said. “I think the age cutoff is like six months, something like that. So really it’s true puppies. And we want them untrained because we want to show puppies in all of their hectic glory, [which] is the nice way of putting it.”

Schachner confirmed that it’s easiest for them to get dogs from New York since that’s where the Puppy Bowl is filmed.

“Of course, we have some New York rescues, but you name it. Florida, Texas, Phoenix, California, Midwest. This year we have a pup from Nicaragua because we want to showcase some of the overpopulation issues in Central America,” he said.

“We cast as wide a net as possible, and the beautiful thing is these shelters will bring themselves to Puppy Bowl. They have no problem transporting these puppies — which is not easy. But they have no problem doing it because the reality is once this dog is on national TV, it will, of course, get adopted right away,” Schachner explained.

“But, more importantly, the shelter will receive a lot of attention it might not otherwise have. And all the shelters we work with report a huge increase in adoption inquiries after they are featured on Puppy Bowl. So it’s a win-win.”

He confirmed the Puppy Bowl dogs have a 100% adoption rate. Some are even adopted on set; Schachner himself welcomed a puppy named Whistle into his home in 2024.

“We’ve had camera guys, studio executives, the volunteers themselves. I clearly am guilty of it. I adopted one last year,” he said.

“But always when the game starts, there’s always dogs that are up for adoption,” Schachner went on. “And by the time the game is done airing, they’re all gone. And the way to do it is as you’re watching the show, you go to puppybowl.com, they’ll connect you with the shelter of the dog that you’re interested in and, boom, that’s it.”

Since his career began in sports media, Schachner said that he still loves watching the Super Bowl every year, even though he’s much more committed to the Puppy Bowl.

“When I get to watch the Super Bowl, it’s actually really relaxing,” he shared.

“I work right up until we air Puppy Bowl, and that’s at 2 p.m. ET, so by the time I get to 6:30 p.m. ET, I’m exhausted and I’m just grateful and thankful to watch someone else stress out for a change.”

Puppy Bowl XXI will be broadcast at 2 p.m. EST across Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, Max and Discovery+.