Stop it with the "heart horse" thing. No, really. Stop it.

[cloudyandcallie]

french fry is NOT frenchfrytheequinehorse

Just remember guys, that frenchfrytheequinehorse is not this OP of this thread. You heart horse people need to know this. Just in case there are hard feelings.

As for men, well my father had 2 llewellyn setters who were family members. Birthday cakes from the great bakery in town, “liver hunts” when we kids had easter egg hunts, steaks at the table, etc. He taught me to love dogs so I expanded that to cats and horses and bantam chickens as well. So men do have strong emotional attachments to animals. As well as my farrier, who used to barrel race. My farrier told me that he had one mare (out of many horses he owned) whom he was crazy about, and when he had to put her down after years of laminitis (QH mare with tiny hooves, etc), he swore, he told me, that he would never love anything or anyone “that much” again. Lots of men care deeply about animals. They just don’t get on horse boards and act like we do. And they don’t show their emotional side in from of us women, or God forbid, in front of other men.

Call your horses whatever you want to. I don’t talk baby talk to mine but I do not care if others do. Doesn’t bother me a bit, unless the person does not take care of her horse and only talks the talk, but doesn’t groom and feed, etc.

[Coanteen]

[QUOTE=HungarianHippo;7766176]
I’m sick of All About Bass. Would saying I am sick of hearing this song inspire anyone to believe that I am against the concept of pop music, [/QUOTE]

~Let it go, let it goooooo…~

[TequilaMockingbird]

The term heart horse makes me cringe, just like the boarder who keeps calling me her horse’s “auntie.”. I’ve had very special relationships with animals, including a horse that was never mine and I still have dreams about her 3 years later. But all my close friends already know the depth of this relationship without me needing to tell them she was my heart horse.

Many people call their birds fids (feathered kids). My parrot and I have an extremely close bond. I would be absolutely devastated if something happened to him. I have no doubt that my relationship with my parrot is just as strong, if not stronger, than those who call them fids. But I don’t feel the need to use a anthropomorphic term to explain this to random strangers.

Some of you are taking this whole thing way too personally.

[Alagirl]

[QUOTE=Coanteen;7766242]
~Let it go, let it goooooo…~[/QUOTE]

I see what you did there!

[omare]

The biggest problem seems to that the term “heart horse” is overused and has suffered from “use” inflation and often the action of the person using it contradicts the term.

[SportArab]

[QUOTE=french fry;7764227]
I can’t even articulate how many face palms the phrase “heart horse” inspires in me. Particularly since it’s almost always used to imbue extra emphasis on the specialness of your situation or lend credence to a terrible decision, i.e. “I’m eating cat food and racking up credit card debt to pay for my heart horse, but it’s all worth it because (rainbow sparkly heart emojis) HEART HORSE.” Or, “My trainer said he’s going to kill me one day but I won’t give up on him because (insert Black Stallion fantasy emoji here) HE’S MY HEART HORSE.”

“Well, that (terrible decision I made) was different because he was my heart horse.”

Just stop it. We humans have a pretty unlimited capacity for love. There will be another one and you will love him/her. Otherwise, what’s the point of being in horses at all?

Mean old hag of COTH, over and out![/QUOTE]

So, I feel sorry for you since this means you’ve never come across your heart horse. I breed and have had numerous babies come and go, but only one was truly a heart horse. I would love to have another, but haven’t had that kind of relationship since I lost my special mare to septicemia many many years ago. And no, it’s not in retrospect that I feel that way. I knew we had something special when she was still alive.

[Aven]

[QUOTE=TequilaMockingbird;7766251]
But I don’t feel the need to use a anthropomorphic term to explain this to random strangers.

Some of you are taking this whole thing way too personally.[/QUOTE]

Its not just the term. I don’t like the term either, but I don’t have anything else to describe my ‘heart’ dog by. And it is a different level of connection. And if I want to describe it to others saying “heart dog” works as most people know what I mean.

I also don’t understand this you will love all your pets. I don’t love all humans I interact with why is it automatic I will love all horses I have. Clearly if I don’t like them I don’t keep them, but I can respect and like them without loving them.

Its like getting up in arms about the term ‘best friend’ and implying that it hurts regular friends. I think you are just going to have much closer relationships with some creatures (Human/Dog/Horse/etc) than with others. And when you meet the one you will know.

[french_fry]

[QUOTE=Aven;7766306]
Its not just the term. I don’t like the term either, but I don’t have anything else to describe my ‘heart’ dog by. And it is a different level of connection. And if I want to describe it to others saying “heart dog” works as most people know what I mean.

I also don’t understand this you will love all your pets. I don’t love all humans I interact with why is it automatic I will love all horses I have. Clearly if I don’t like them I don’t keep them, but I can respect and like them without loving them.

Its like getting up in arms about the term ‘best friend’ and implying that it hurts regular friends. I think you are just going to have much closer relationships with some creatures (Human/Dog/Horse/etc) than with others. And when you meet the one you will know.[/QUOTE]

The concept of best friends is actually a really good illustration of one of the points I was trying to make in my OP. I didn’t at all mean to imply that you will love every horse in your life equally; rather that, in the same way that it is possible to have more than one best friend throughout different times in your life, you will love another horse again.

Many people have a best friend when they’re small children, perhaps another one in middle school, another one in high school, another one in college, another one once they enter the workforce, etc. Not everyone has a best friend during each of these phases of life, but the majority of people have had more than one busom buddy in their lives. You are growing and changing and so your needs in a friend (interests, geographic location, etc.) change too.

This doesn’t mean your first best friend didn’t mean as much to you and it certainly doesn’t mean that your new friend is replacing your old one (who is hopefully still in your life) - it just means that you change and evolve and you have a lot of room in your heart/life for different people with different personalities.

That said, my OP was mostly focused on the disastrous combination of the phrase “heart horse” and some terrible decision that’s been made or is about to be made. Heartless witch as I’ve been made out to be, I’ve never said that we can’t share a special bond with our horses.

[PeteyPie]

The use that bugs me is when Heart Horse is used in combination with Craigslist, Forever Home, Must Sell, and especially, the cringeworthy 20(+) Years Old.

[kdow]

[QUOTE=Aven;7766306]
Its not just the term. I don’t like the term either, but I don’t have anything else to describe my ‘heart’ dog by. And it is a different level of connection. And if I want to describe it to others saying “heart dog” works as most people know what I mean.

I also don’t understand this you will love all your pets. I don’t love all humans I interact with why is it automatic I will love all horses I have. Clearly if I don’t like them I don’t keep them, but I can respect and like them without loving them.[/QUOTE]

I do love all of my pets, but I have always been in a position where I didn’t have to take on an animal if I didn’t feel some kind of connection. (Not to the point of “heart” whatever, but some level of love and affection.) I do think one problem we sometimes have now with the whole idea of forever homes, etc. is that it means people are discouraged from saying “you know, maybe I am not the best situation for this critter” and looking for something better for the animal.

My family usually got dogs from shelters. We’ve also had the attitude that once you take it in, you have a responsibility to the animal even if things aren’t working out perfectly. We still rehomed one dog. Why? Because we lived in the city and at the time no one could give him the bajillion hours of running around outside he clearly wanted and our yard was the size of a postage stamp. We happened to have good family friends who had older teenage kids who liked to go for walks and who lived further out with a nice big yard. And they were looking for a dog. Perfect fit. They doted on that dog right up until he finally had to be pts at 15-16. He was happy. I strongly suspect he was essentially a heart dog for the father of the family, though he would never describe it in those words. And because they were people we knew well and saw regularly, we could tell he was settling in okay and happy, etc.

Yet for some people, that story is an “omg how could you?” because we took a small calculated risk that it would be better for him and he would be cared for well instead of keeping him with us where he was not thriving. (Had we not had a good place to try, we probably would’ve tried harder to work something out rather than re homing him randomly. But it would not have been fair to anyone to keep him with us instead of trying out the option that was available that looked quite promising.)

That is stupid. And it isn’t really about “heart” animals but I can see how some of the mentality that some people use when talking about how everything is a “heart” animal or a furkid or whatever does feed into that culture of “you must keep everything forever or else you are just as bad as someone who has a puppy mill and kicks all the puppies before selling them to labs for testing and dog fighters for bait.”

(Note that I do think finding a better home for an animal is not the same as dumping an animal when it gets old or develops health problems you don’t want to deal with. Part of owning an animal is that they get sick and they get old. You should expect to have to deal with that at some time in a way that is not “count on being able to dump it on someone else.”)

[FalseImpression]

Frankly the way I refer to my horse is none of your business… and I don’t have to justify it to you…
She has my heart, is my heart horse because she was the first one and the other horses are (un)fortunately compared to her. I love the others as well, but she has been ours for 15 years, the others not as long… one we knew for 7 years before we bought him for $1 when his owner could not keep him and the young one has only been here for less than two years.
So SHE is IT!!
Like it or not, that’s your problem, not mine!

[prairiewind2]

@HungarianHippo;7766176

My DINGDING post was also very specific, quoting the post that at least one poster was using the term in a way to designate that heart horse people must love their horses more than I do because I don’t tend to use the term. Upon re-reading that post, I don’t think my interpretation / reaction to what this poster was saying was far off-base. But given how wildly misinterpreted my posts apparently were, of course it’s possible I wildly misinterpreted that one too.

Your post was directed at my post, and really, you need to get over this idea that people are comparing themselves to you and snickering. Most people spend very little time thinking about others!

Early in the thread there were posters who used the term “self indulgent” to describe people who used the words “heart horse” and they also seemed to indicate they didn’t believe there was any such thing.

I said that I felt sad that they had never had such a relationship with their horses. That was a sincere feeling on my part, not some snide and prideful comment. I feel no particular pride over having had a heart horse. I was very lucky and wish that all horse owners could have that luck. How is that comparing myself to anyone? It was also a sincere statement to say that describing a heart horse to someone who didn’t believe in 'em would be like describing color to the blind. That was the nearest analogy I could think of.

I also feel lucky that I don’t live in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone right now. I don’t feel superior to those people; I just feel infinite sadness for them and wish circumstances were very different for them. Is this a comment on you too?

[Alagirl]

well, you do feel sorry (as in pity, superior, etc) for those people who you assume have not experienced your level of special bond.

Well, since it has been said many times over: there is a cringe worthy facet to certain fluff phrases.
I know my dad had a favorite horse. That did not keep him from selling it though.
A difference between the emotional aspect of dealing with the animal and the rational setting of having a barnful to deal with.

As much as you do not want people judging you for your emotional connection to your animals…I think you ought not to comment on what you perceive as lack of ‘close’ bonds.

And as I type this, the Blue petfood commercial is on: Pet Parent: ‘my Baby deserves the best!’

[prairiewind2]

[QUOTE=Alagirl;7766405]
well, you do feel sorry (as in pity, superior, etc) for those people who you assume have not experienced your level of special bond.

Well, since it has been said many times over: there is a cringe worthy facet to certain fluff phrases.
I know my dad had a favorite horse. That did not keep him from selling it though.
A difference between the emotional aspect of dealing with the animal and the rational setting of having a barnful to deal with.

As much as you do not want people judging you for your emotional connection to your animals…I think you ought not to comment on what you perceive as lack of ‘close’ bonds.

And as I type this, the Blue petfood commercial is on: Pet Parent: ‘my Baby deserves the best!’[/QUOTE]

No, I did not feel pity for any of the people who did not believe in (or had not had) a heart animal. Pity (to me) is an emotion that implies some feelings of superiority. That is not the technical definition according to the dictionary, but I do think that it is often used that way. I said “sad” and that is what I meant - sadness, sorrow, not pity. But it was a fleeting feeling because they didn’t seem to have a desire for a heart animal, so I wasn’t going to spend my time thinking about it!

Any cringing because of the term heart (animal) is due to the baggage the listener brings, not due to the words themselves, which are benign. Speakers can’t be responsible for the baggage of listeners.

[prairiewind2]

[QUOTE=Alagirl;7766405]

I know my dad had a favorite horse. That did not keep him from selling it though.

'[/QUOTE]

And that is why “favorite” is not comparable with “heart”. The only way I could ever have sold my heart horse is if I were somehow completely convinced it would have been better for him.

[Appsolute]

[QUOTE=peedin;7765761]

The word I hate is rescue. Someone adopts a dog or cat from a shelter and it immediately becomes “I rescued this animal.” The animal may not have been in a life or death situation or abused, but people think because you didn’t buy the animal through traditional channels, it is a rescue. And if you did buy an animal through traditional channels, you are a bad person because you didn’t RESCUE an animal.[/QUOTE]

Its kinda off topic - but I am 100% with you on this!

I bought my current horse as a weanling. She came to me under weight, and a bit pathetic. The people who had her, weren’t “mean” or bad people, just very ignorant, and shouldn’t have been trying to care for a mare and foal.

When I brought my new weanling to the boarding barn, the “fuzzies” as I will call them (type that would talk about furbabies ) said “ooooh is she a RESCUE?” “You RESCUED her huh? Bless you for RESCUING her”

I “upgraded” her sure. But not a rescue. I didn’t pull her out of a pit, or off a one way trailer over the border…

[NoSuchPerson]

[QUOTE=prairiewind2;7766423]
Any cringing because of the term heart (animal) is due to the baggage the listener brings, not due to the words themselves, which are benign. Speakers can’t be responsible for the baggage of listeners.[/QUOTE]

Then you fully support the use of “the ‘n’ word” in any context? Because, you know, speakers can’t be responsible for the baggage of the listeners?

That is, admittedly, an extreme example, but the fundamentals are the same.

You are certainly free to use the term “heart horse.” [shrug]

All I’m saying is that when I hear someone use the term “heart horse,” I think of them as a certain kind of person. And again, [shrug]

You don’t care what I think? Well, this is COTH. Since when someone caring what you think been a prerequisite for anybody to post anything? :lol:

[Alagirl]

[QUOTE=prairiewind2;7766437]
And that is why “favorite” is not comparable with “heart”. The only way I could ever have sold my heart horse is if I were somehow completely convinced it would have been better for him.[/QUOTE]

Different strokes for different folks.

I know you say you don’t, but you claim superiority here.
Some people won’t let emotions cloud their actions.

[prairiewind2]

Most certainly I never said that different strokes weren’t for different folks! To each his own.

And I repeat - I am not claiming superiority. (You are bringing that baggage with you.) I am simply stating there is a difference between favorite and heart - because some people earlier in the thread were looking for comparable words and I think “favorite” was one of them. I was simply illustrating why I didn’t think they were comparable.

It appears to me that your final statement is said with superiority. I could be wrong.

[Hej]

Can we agree that the concept of one (or more) pet(s)/companion animal(s)/horse(s) being particularly important/connected/special to an individual person is not uncommon; while also conceding that the overuse of certain emotionally manipulative words makes even those of us that have experienced that phenomenon want to puke?