‘Fix Your Ex’: Spay, Neuter Cats In Pinellas For Valentine’s Day

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Jilted and disgruntled lovers now have a productive way of taking aim at their exes. Friends of Strays, a St. Petersburg-based animal shelter, has launched “Fix Your Ex,” a feline spay-and-neuter initiative, to raise funds for the organization this Valentine’s Day season.

Through Feb. 17, people can donate $25 to the “Fix Your Ex” fundraiser, now in its second year. For each donation, Friends of Strays will name a community cat that goes through its trap-neuter-vaccinate-return (TNVR) program, Meow Now, after the donor’s ex.

After seeing another animal organization in another state offer a similar promotion, Friends of Strays staff “thought it was just a funny way to raise money and to raise awareness of a program to help cats in the community that are unhomed,” Dara Worthington, CEO, told Patch.

The shelter took over Meow Now, a separate organization that operated for about a decade, two years ago. Since then, Friends of Strays has spayed and neutered, vaccinated, ear tipped, and returned to their communities about 3,000 cats.

• Also Read: The Cat Box, A Feline Adoption Center, Opening Soon In St. Petersburg

Since then, the organization has updated the language around this program to “self-trapping” and “assisted trapping,” Worthington said.

In a “self-trapping” scenario, people can rent traps from the organization and capture the cats themselves for spaying and neutering.

Those who opt for “assisted trapping,” the organization’s employees help the caretakers of cat colonies to trap and tend to the entire colony.

“It’s a very innovative program,” Worthington said. “The latest research … shows that a combined approach … is the best way to manage cat communities with a two-pronged approach to help community cats.”

Friends of Strays is also recovering from damage caused by Hurricane Milton in October to its new Cat Box, a cat adoptions center, at 3015 46th Ave. N.

The building, which just opened in July, was closed for six months for remediation. Its animals were evacuated ahead of the storm to a shelter in Buffalo, New York.

“Everybody but one cat has been adopted already,” Worthington said. “And that one cat not adopted is their office cat. They love her so much and she just became part of their family.”

The organization is now moving forward on plans for a separate dog shelter, the Milkey Bone Dog House, nearby.

The project was delayed a bit because of the hurricane, but the nonprofit is finalizing the floor plans for the building and plan to move into the blueprint phase soon and the construction phase later this year. Worthington hopes it will be open by the first quarter of 2026.