Valentine's Day – Pain In The Bud

Leave Valentine’s Day Gifts For Buddy By The Front Door, Thanks!

Buddy the Cat’s female admirers, both feline and human, say he is a sexy beast.

NEW YORK — For the third night in a row, Buddy the Cat rolled onto his back, belched thunderously, and settled down for a restful nap surrounded by the devoured remnants of treats and snacks gifted to him for Valentine’s Day.

“It’s wonderful to be so loved that hundreds of Valentines Day packages are deliv…ooh, bacon-flavored crunchies!” Buddy said, breaking his train of thought after discovering six or seven of the little treats under a pile of opened and discarded packages.

“Where was I?” the bloated feline asked, blinking. “Oh yeah. It’s such a great feeling to have so many admirers that … mmmm, sandwich … every day brings new …* burp *! … gifts of food to sample and … oh, I love turkey gravy!”

The chubby tabby has been the recipient of countless Valentine’s Day gifts this year, reflecting his considerable popularity among females, both feline and human. He’s been eating his way through them with enthusiasm since the packages began arriving.

Witnesses report the well-fed feline was unable to complete a sentence without getting distracted and stopping to shovel food into his mouth mid-sentence.

“He only stops eating when he falls asleep,” one witness told PITB. “At this rate, his human will have to roll him around like a boulder because, frankly, I’m not sure anyone makes a cat carrier with material strong enough to lift him without ripping apart.”

As of press time, Buddy had fallen asleep with a sloppy hand-written note taped to his forehead, asking visitors to leave Valentine’s Day gifts in one of the 27 provided baskets.

You Can’t Neuter Your Ex, But You Can Donate To A Shelter To ‘Fix’ A Stray Named After Him

Or if your sense of humor tends toward the scatological, you can donate to put your ex’s name on a litter box.

Like other nonprofits, animal shelters face steep competition when it comes to scoring charitable donations, so the more a shelter can stand out, the better.

For some that means stories about their rescues and pets-in-waiting going viral. For others, it means finding clever ways to use occasions like Valentine’s Day to raise money.

One of the latest fads involves making a donation to pay for spay/neuter surgery for a street or shelter cat — and having the cat named after your ex. As one shelter puts it, “because some things shouldn’t breed.”

Poor Scram has no idea he’s a stand-in for a despised ex.

If the idea of castrating an ex seems a little morbid to you, you’ve still got options.

For just $5, Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Nine Lives Shelter will write your ex’s name on a litter box.

“Our foster cats and kittens will handle the rest by doing what they do best,” the shelter’s staff wrote on Facebook.

A search turns up similar Valentine’s Day themed fundraisers in New York City, Oklahoma, Detroit, Washington, Alabama, Tampa, Des Moines, northern California, and dozens of other cities, regions and states.

Of course, there’s another option for people who prefer a more positive take: donating out of love for cats in general, because despite the encouraging drop in animal euthanasia over the past two decades — the result of relentless campaigns to get pets and street cats spayed/neutered — a few hundred thousand cats are put down every year. Every time a cat is fixed, that number drops, and existing cats have a better chance of finding forever homes.

Happy Valentine’s Day From The Fabio Of Cats

Little Buddy’s special Valentine’s Day message!

Whether you’re staying home on Valentine’s Day or spending it with your longtime significant other, there’s reason to celebrate with this special Valentine’s Day message from Little Buddy.

Lounging like the Fabio of cats, locking onto the camera with his soulful green eyes, Buddy embodies the romantic aspect of the holiday.

Already a major heartthrob to felines all over the world, Buddy is guaranteed to set human hearts fluttering as well with his meowscular good looks and remarkable charm.

Gaze upon this Adonis of Cats, ye mighty, and tremble!

And finally, if you already have enough little buddies in your life, Buddy the Cupid will help you find your significant other…for a nominal fee of canned turkey pate and only during hours not designated for nap time, of course.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you’re not feeling the love, you can always head to your local shelter and donate to have a cat neutered in the name of your ex!

Happy Valentine’s Day from the Buddies! Buddy Cupid, or Bupid, is currently flying around with his little bow and heart arrows, wondering why they can’t be used to shoot turkey.

He’ll figure it out soon enough, although knowing him, he’ll use his arrows to make people fall in love with him so he has an entire army of infatuated humans who would love nothing more than to feed him and cuddle him.

We hope you’re all having a great day and that you’re able to spend time with the people and pets you love most in this world.

And hey, if you’re not feeling the love, you can take the opportunity to participate in one of the many “Neuter Your Ex” promotions happening at cat shelters in Portland, Baltimore, New Jersey, Michigan and even Saskatchewan. For between $25 and $50, depending on the shelter, you’ll be given the opportunity to name a feline after the person you’d like to see, uh, fixed, and help reduce the stray cat population as a result. It’s win-win, except maybe for the person you’re imagining getting the snip.

I Made A Custom Cat T-Shirt For My Niece

It’s a one-off with the possibility of more for my niece who “loves kitties!”

My niece is six years old and she “loves kitties!”

Unfortunately she’s allergic to cats. Hopefully her allergies become less severe with time as mine did and she can adopt a cat at some point, but until then she has to settle for admiring felines at a distance and occasionally petting Buddy.

Even though my niece can’t have a cat of her own I can still encourage her love of cats, so I made a cat t-shirt for her as one of her Christmas gifts this year:

I’m using the same image for February in Buddy’s Meownificent 2024 Catlendar, which should be available soon. I’ll post the link when it’s live on Redbubble.

This is now the second t-shirt with my custom artwork featuring cats. I have a t-shirt of the photoshop image I created of Bud playing basketball:

The print came out surprisingly well, but in the future I’m going to stick with artwork rather than composites of photographs/photoshops like this one, for the simple fact that the simpler color schemes and cleaner lines work better on t-shirts than photographs.