2. Do you think Felicity would have had as much empathy for Penny and try to help the situation if she were not a horse-lover?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I will take the less popular opinion and say that no, I DO NOT believe that Felicity would have been so drawn to help Penny had she not been a horse lover. If you're not already a horse-lover, most people do not see horses the same way they see a cat or a dog or a pet bird or even a fish. Too many people, especially animal control workers in my experience, have no idea how intelligent and human-like a horse can really be.

There's an example of that mindset that happened right here where I live, last summer. There was a pregnant mare who was being pretty much ignored by her owners. She was malnourished, underweight and sick. The next door neighbor called the SPCA, and they came out and looked things over and deemed she had a hay belly. Three problems with that: A vet had already confirmed the pregnancy; It was extremely clear from the picture in the paper that the horse was majorly underweight, and there was no hay or even edible grass to be found in the pasture. Did the SPCA do anything? No. The mare and her foal died when she went into labor. Were the owners charged with animal cruelty? No, they got away with it.

Horse lovers and horse rescuers are a special breed of people within the realm of animal lovers, IMO. For the most part we do love other animals and hate to see any animal mistreated. But horses are our main passion. If horses are not the animal lover's main love, then they won't be motivated to take the necessary time to rescue the horse in every way that's needed to insure the horse actually survives and thrives. Horses are some of the most intelligent, and easily scared, domesticated animals in the entire world.