Meet Ocean City's internet sensation, the pine cone dog

On a crisp April evening, Buddy, mother Judy and son Joey Sweren's Pomeranian mix, frolics in their parking lot on Jamestown Avenue in Ocean City.

Judy gently kicks a pine cone, which Buddy eagerly dives on, picking it up and prancing around with it between his teeth. At the foot of the stairway to their second story apartment, Buddy drops it into a pile of dozens of other discarded pine cones.

This goofy quirk went from a lovable trait to a viral sensation last week, when Joey posted a picture of Buddy holding the pine cone in its mouth, the exact angle creating the illusion of monster teeth inside the fluffy pup's mouth.

The pic went viral, with the original tweet standing at over 25,000 likes and just under 10,000 retweets. Buddy's viral fame culminated in an interview with Buzzfeed News.

"It's really cool," said Joey, 19. "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.

As the internet is wont to do, the fun didn't stop with Joey's picture. The perpetual Twitter meme pumped out Photoshop after Photoshop of Buddy. Joey's favorite came from user Kevitus Wutis of Buddy donning the mask of Batman villain Bane.

For Judy, the attention and reach of the image was incredible.

"I had a friend from Australia call me up and say she saw the picture on a morning news show there," she said. "It's just crazy how random it is that it would make it all the way out to Australia."

Joey, who has used Twitter since 2012, remarked that he still doesn't quite understand how the internet decides what the next viral sensation is going to be. For his situation, he's glad it was something positive.

"It was great that there were really no negative responses, it was just a bunch of positive people," he said.

As for Buddy, the fame doesn't seem to have gone to his head. However, he declined to respond to an interview request from Delmarvanow. Our sources speculate that his mouth may have been full.