U.S. Olympic athletes use puppy power to prepare for Rio games

The upcoming Rio Olympics have been plagued by the specter of possible trouble in the city, from pollution, to Zika virus, to security concerns, but none of that matters because, as usual, puppies fix everything. 

At least that's the message the NBC Olympics social media team transmitted this week when it posted a series of photos to Instagram and Facebook featuring your favorite Olympic athletes snuggling with the cutest puppies on the planet. 

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Included in the furry fun are swimmers Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Missy Franklin, runner Allyson Felix, gymnasts Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, soccer player Carli Lloyd, tennis player Venus Williams and many others. 

The adorable photo op the result of a recent People Magazine photo shoot that used puppies held in Southern California animal shelters and provided by Good Dog Animals, according to NBC's Clear the Shelters organization. Clear the Shelters is NBC's initiative pairing 40 of the company's television stations with roughly 700 animal shelters in the U.S. to help drive pet adoption on Saturday. 

Image:  nbcolympics.com screen grab

You can check out the full gallery of athletes posing with puppies on the NBC Olympics site. 

Now all this cute power won't help to protect the world-class athletes from the hopefully overblown concerns surrounding the Rio Olympics. But one good omen for the Rio Games: All the puppies in the photo shoot were later adopted, according to Good Dog Animals.