Grab Your Tissues For Purina’s Latest Initiative & Commercial

For the record, I made it to 2:09 before the waterworks started. I dare you to go longer. Emotions aside, Purina’s ‘Find Your Old Friend’ initiative is pretty amazing.

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Remember when Purina made us all bawl around Christmas a few years ago with this emotional punch-in-the-gut of a commercial? Well, they’ve done it again. If you’re at work or in a public place, consider this your official warning. If you’re in the privacy of your home or barn or someplace where you don’t care if people are about to see you ugly cry, go forth.

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE A FREAKING CLYDESDALE. They should really just put in the official breed description “will star in commercials that will make adult horse girls weep like babies.” (True story: those darn Clydes figure prominently in my list of seven things that will make equestrians choke up, every time.)

Okay, Horse Nation, have you gathered yourself? Have you wiped away the tears and can read again? Okay, good. Thanks for coming back to us. Because the Find Your Old Friend service that this commercial is actually advertising from Purina is genuinely amazing, and we wanted you to get that cry out of your system before you kept reading.

The premise is beautifully simple in its execution, harnessing the power of social media to connect people to help horse lovers connect with horses from their past. It’s easy to get involved:

• Join the Find Your Old Friend Facebook group
• Upload some photos and information about the horse you’re trying to find
• Purina will turn the photos into ads that will run in the horse’s last known location

The Facebook group currently has horses organized into albums by region to help horse owners get connected. Already, several hundred members are networking and sharing information about horses they’ve lost touch with, from owners along the way to original breeders wondering where their horses wound up.

For many individuals, a horse is a lifelong commitment — but the realities of life often mean that we cannot always keep a horse forever. This initiative by Purina is doing a great service to help network those connections and help reunite old friends.

Go Purina, and go crying. I mean, go riding.