It’s often said that dogs will make friends with just about anyone, and that certainly applies to Birdie the Labrador who has struck up a surprising friendship with none other than a horse, and they’ve become quite the inseparable duo.
Farm owner Aysha Michaud, 34, shared an adorable video on TikTok (@oakforgefarm) showing the adorable bond between 2-year-old Birdie and her equine bestie, Baltimore. From the moment Birdie joined the family at 8 weeks old, she was introduced to the 20-year-old horse, although Michaud told Newsweek that their friendship was “definitely a slow burn.”
Baltimore wasn’t too sure what to make of the Labrador puppy at first and didn’t show any interest. However, once she started to grow and became more confident, Baltimore didn’t seem to mind her presence quite so much.
Eventually. Birdie managed to win him over and now their friendship is the envy of the farm.
“Baltimore usually loves dogs, so I wasn’t sure if it was because she was so small, but he really wanted nothing to do with her for a while,” Michaud, of Pennsylvania, said. “The bigger she got, the more interested she was in him, but he would still ignore her, which I think made her more comfortable in the beginning.
“She started going into his stall whenever she wanted, like it was her own. Sometimes she’d just say hi, other times she’d lie down (most times we’d find her eating the grain on the ground as he dropped it when he was eating breakfast and dinner).”
In the two years since their first encounter, Birdie and Baltimore have truly become best friends. Birdie loves sleeping at the horse’s feet, in his stall, and even leading him out with a rope leash in her mouth. Michaud jokes that the unexpected duo “have no boundaries” and they spend as much time together as they possibly can.
“I’m not sure if she thinks she’s a horse or if he thinks he’s a dog, but they definitely think they’re the same,” Michaud continued.
The adorable TikTok video showing how their friendship started compared to now has gone viral online, leading to more than 1.4 million views and over 178,400 likes at the time of writing. The footage shows Baltimore’s not so welcoming reaction to the puppy at first, before showing the horse giving his canine bestie all the belly rubs she could want.
The online reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and while Michaud is somewhat accustomed to seeing Birdie and Baltimore, she’s delighted their friendship could bring joy to so many others.
Michaud told Newsweek: “Watching them interact just makes your heart happy. He’s my heart horse and Birdie is the sweetest dog, I love them so much. They both have more personality than they know what to do with, so it makes sense that they are best friends.”
Social media users hailed their unlikely dog and horse friendship and the viral TikTok video has already amassed over 590 comments at the time of writing.
One comment reads: “The slow ear rotation from death mode to best friend mode.”
Another TikTok user wrote: “that goofy smile on the dog when they’re getting rubbins from the horse.”
Another person joked: “It’s like having a younger sibling. You can only fight the feeling so long.”
While one commenter said: “Puppy is like… you don’t know it yet, but you’re gonna love me.”
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