Granted, $50 pays for only about two days of sheltering an animal; and granted, one can similarly sponsor a sheltered animal at most any shelter most any time; and granted, I may have gone and spoiled the surprise by blogging about it too early.

The point is, though, this is one of the best ideas for a shelter, pound, rescue group, humane society that I’ve ever heard.

Lots of shelters seize on Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to tie in some promotion that will relieve them of some dogs or help them pay the bills, but by personally delivering a gift – and having the recipient dog, when possible, go along – the Humane Society of Western Montana is doing it right.

Which, as doing it right often does, requires a massive amount of work.

The gifts will be delivered on Valentine’s Day by humane society volunteers, according to Nicole (no relation to Nick) Nolte, operations manager. Nolte designed the bright pink website developed for the project, and says an outreach manager at the shelter came up with the idea.

The shelter will also be holding an “adopt-a-thon” on Valentine’s Day, dropping the price for adopting an animal from $60 to $14. Nolte says the shelter places about 75 percent of the animals that come in.

The rest, after wearing out their welcome, well, you know what happens – and donations earmarked for a specific dog can help extend that period, so dogs like Hannah, 9-years-old and two months in the shelter, might be bought some more time.

In the Valentine program, donors can pick the dog they want to sponsor in the name of their loved one from the shelter’s website.

This being Valentine’s Day already, and since it’s unlikely your honey lives in Missoula, Montana, this does you last-minute guys no good at all. But fear not; there’s always next year – and maybe some other shelters will read this and realize what a lovely way this might be to get a tiny piece of the $17 billion Americans (this year) will fritter away on Valentine’s Day-related spending.

If you can’t find a shelter that offers this program, or a similar one, there are several wildlife groups to which you can donate in a friend's name, among them Defenders of Wildlife. On its website, you can adopt a polar bear, wolf, penguin, sea turtle or even an elephant in a loved ones name. In exchange that person gets an animal photo, a fact sheet relating to that animal, a certificate of adoption and a “cuddly plush toy.”

Then too, many wildlife and animal protection groups, like the North Shore Animal League, have their own online gift stores, where a portion of the profits go to animals. 

And the Humane Society of the United States offers a Hip, Hip, Humane program through which you can celebrate any person, pet, friendship or occasion with a donation.

The choice is yours, guys. You can send flowers, which will wilt and die in a few days, buy a box of candy, which we all knows goes straight to the waistline, or cough up the dough for some glittery human adornment.

But you might want to consider donating to animals. Chicks dig it.

At least I think they do. To find out for sure, tune in later.