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Buddy is a Pomeranian mix with a predilection for pine cones. When his owner, Judy Sweren, kicks one, Buddy will pick it up and add it to his collection at the foot of the stairs to their second-floor apartment.
It’s been a fun quirk that she and her 19-year-old son, Joey, have enjoyed for some time, and when Joey decided to share a photo of Buddy holding a pine cone on Twitter — the Internet fell in love, as well.
The angle of the photo created the illusion of demon-esque teeth in Buddy’s mouth and – BOOM! – it went viral. The original post had nearly 29,000 likes at press time. The explosion garnered Joey an interview on Buzzfeed News.
“It’s really cool,” Joey told DelMarvaNow. “I pretty much just work a lot, so a lot of the people I’m friends with are from work. After this went viral, I started getting a lot more attention from people who didn’t talk to me much before.”The interview with BuzzFeed, he said, was the best part of the whole situation.
“I love BuzzFeed, so when I got the message from them, that was just the coolest thing ever,” he said.
So fun when viral pics get doctored, too. Joey’s favorite was from Twitter-user Kevitus Wutis: Buddy as infamous Batman villain, Bane.
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And for the Internet, which is often the cruelest place on earth, there was no negativity.
“It was great that there were really no negative responses, it was just a bunch of positive people,” he said.
