Animal shelter offers to ‘neuter your ex’ for Valentine’s Day

BLACKWOOD, N.J. (KYW) - A New Jersey animal shelter is giving scorned partners a way to get back at their exes for Valentine’s Day while also helping to control the pet population.

The Homeward Bound Pet Adoption Center is offering to “neuter your ex” by naming a feral cat after them then having the cat spayed or neutered. The promotion’s tagline is “because some things shouldn’t breed.”

The Blackwood shelter is asking for a $50 donation for the service.

“It’s been really interesting to see what people have been sending in,” said Eric Schwartz, the shelter’s director of development.

So far, five cats have been named after some lucky - or not-so-lucky – exes, and about 40 to 50 additional requests have come in.

Schwartz says no exes have had complaints yet, but he expects the shelter will see some soon.

The promotion is part of the shelter’s trap-neuter-return program, and the donations it receives will go toward keeping the program running.

“There’s cats all over our community, and if we don’t all work together to proactively trap-neuter-return them, they’re just going to keep breeding and just making a lot more cats that have no homes,” Schwartz said.

This is not the only eccentric Valentine’s Day promotion that animal shelters and zoos have tried in recent years. The San Antonio Zoo offered to name a cockroach after your ex and feed it to an animal in exchange for a donation.