Cole Hauser's Relationship With His First Yellowstone Horse Is Heartwarming

If you're not familiar, horses are a lot like most other one-ton animals, only they'll let you nail pieces of metal to their feet. Also, you can braid their hair, and the game gets mad at you if you shoot them in "Red Dead Redemption." Alright, you're caught up on horses now. Let's get on with the story.

"Yellowstone" actor Cole Hauser knows a thing or two about horses. He has, after all, been starring on the show for five seasons, making him as close to a living Earp brother as you can get these days. Anyone familiar with the series will know that it's downright lousy with little ponies. Hauser, for his part, only called one his own.

"Year two, the horse I loved the most," Hauser said in a recent interview, "and he's actually, he's lame now because he hurt himself [...] his name was Dude. He was a bay horse, and he was a bada**." Alright, Cole Hauser. You've got our attention. We're tentatively on Team Dude for the time being.

Cole Hauser continued, explaining exactly what made Dude so cool. "He'd do anything for me," the actor told Entertainment Tonight. "He was like, my best friend [...] I could look at him and go 'let's go,' and he just walked right up, yeah."

Still, as anyone who's ever watched even one single movie about making friends with an animal can tell you, these things tend to end in heartbreak. As Hauser said, Dude suffered an unspecified career-ending injury and was retired to what we can only assume is an upscale Malibu retirement community for show business horses, the kind of place where there's always fresh hay and the community theater never performs "Equus." Pragmatically, this meant that Hauser would need a new horse on the show.

Asked about his re-cast co-star, Hauser sheepishly revealed that the crew "call him Dude Number Two. Then there's Dude Number 3 — all of the horses I ride are named Dude." And how does he feel about the cavalcade of Dudes? "They're okay, but nothing like the first one." The old chestnut is true: You never forget your first dude.