....is where i am. i've about had it with my parents. first they steal my dog....and now my horse   . and they're using my six year old brother to make me feel bad about it all.    i no longer know what to do. i mean, i paid 1500 dollars for this horse when i was 16. i went through hell finding the right horse for me. Hell as in: being thrown, bucked, stepped on and also horses rearing up and bolting with me. then i find this perfect horse and pay for him all by myself. it was soooo perfect, our bond. he totally understood me and we worked as a team. then of course i had to run off to college 400 miles away. they told me they'd bring me my horse when i found a place for him. so i did. and what did they do? brought me my mom's horse so i could train it for her. and i did. which now is unbroke because she never rides him. then my dad trades off and sends me his horse to train.

well, i fell in love with it and he finally gave it to me for my b-day last year. well, anyway, he fell on the pavement when we were riding a couple months ago and landed on top of me. now he's afraid to go on the street and i want MY horse back so i can have one to ride with my friends while i'm working with the one that fell. my parents keep bugging me about what i want for my b-day next week so i told them that they could bring me my horse. and they're like we don't have the money. so i offered to send them the money. then they used the excuse that his legs (which are too straight) couldn't handle the cold in the winter time. i told them that i thought he could handle it and then they pulled my little brother into it. sometime last year i told my brother that he could have joe to ride while i wasn't home. but that was before he had a horse to ride. now he has two that he rides in competitions.

i'm just so pissed that they are playing this game with my emotions. the first year that i got joe, they wrote me a letter for christmas: That i was the perfect daughter and joe was the perfect horse for me and that they hoped we would be able to be together for a long time  . but now it's like since they found out i'm not the perfect daughter, it doesn't matter.

i don't know how to cope with this guys...i used to cope by cutting but i haven't done that since january and i don't want to start that again   . after writing this rant, it helps but i still don't know what to do. 

sorry this was so long, but thanks for reading....i really need to know that somebody is listening to me sometimes....

Dude, I think I know exactly how you feel. I got my dog, Blue, when I was 19... found her at a shelter, raised her from 2 months old, and she was the PERFECT dog. For 6 years, she always knew when I was upset, was always there for me... and then I got married. My wife loved Blue, but our lives became a bit hectic, forcing me to find someone to take care of Blue for a few months while we figured things out. We left her with my wife's uncle, who promised to take good care of her until we went back to get her.

Instead, when we drove 2000 miles to pick her up, the uncle informed us that if we even attempted to come near his house, he would call the police and have us arrested for trespassing. I haven't seen my beloved dog in 2 years now. It broke my heart, and I doubt I'll ever recover, honestly.

For the year afterward or so, I think I thought of Blue almost every day. But it did get easier... I just tried to make my life as good as it could be, tried to realize that even if I got her back, she wouldn't be the same dog anymore. At this point, I'm hoping to get another dog and try to start over... though I know I'll never forget about Blue.

Some people just don't understand how much a pet can be your family. Blue was more my family than my parents ever were... but I can't change what happened. My best advice is, try to let your parents know how much they hurt you, and try to live your life as best you can. Unfortunately, sometimes awful things like this happen and there's not much you can do about them.

SD