The Seattle Seahawks won the 2014 Superbowl, but puppies won the hearts and minds of everyone watching.

Sure, you can turn the channel over to the “Puppy Bowl,” but we’re talking about the Budwiser commercial designed to bring us all to tears. And as we all know, commercials are one of the biggest parts of the day.

While we don’t know the marketing philosophy behind connecting beer and puppies, Budwiser has long used its iconic Clydesdale horses in Superbowl and holiday commercials. That particular breed of horse was once used to pull beer wagons for the brewery after a team of them was given to the company’s CEO as a gift from his son to celebrate the end of Prohibition in 1933.

Using them in Superbowl ads began in 1986.

But 2014’s “Puppy Love” commercial took things in a whole new direction.

The commercial was a follow-up to the 2013 Superbowl ad “Brotherhood” about a Clydesdale pony that bonded with its trainer as it grew up. And for some reason, it made everyone weepy in the first 7 seconds even though nothing dramatic happened.

Of course, the ugly cries came halfway through when the horse had to leave to become a member of the Budweiser Clydesdale team. There’s a dramatic reunion at the end, but we hardly saw it through the tears.

Frankly, it made us miss those stupid “Wazzap” frog commercials from the ’90s since they didn’t make us sad.

But Budweiser decided to continue the story in 2014 – at least the story of the trainer. He’s back at his Clydesdale farm – presumably training more ponies that will someday leave him – when a fuzzy little Labrador retriever puppy from the farm next door keeps sneaking over.

It turns out he’s made friends with one of the horses, which is cute until you realize Budweiser is going to make it sad.

Not content to let us have a tear-free Superbowl, the puppy is then adopted – but not just adopted, basically stripped away from his buddy!

That face!

Of course, his adoption means he has to leave behind the horse, who is heartbroken.

Join the club!

Passenger’s “Let Her Go” provided the perfect soundtrack to make it all more traumatic for viewers and you have to wonder how this doesn’t bring down the mood of a whole Superbowl party.

Luckily, the Clydesdales intervene by basically chasing down the car of the adopted and mugging him for his puppy.

Not only is the puppy reunited with his best bud, but he becomes the dog of the horse trainer.

Of course, anyone paying enough attention to the commercials knows that horse is going to be sent off to Budweiser eventually, but we’ll take the happy ending for now.

That brings us to 2020, the year everything went sideways. The beer is no longer flowing between friends because we’re all inside socially distancing in light of the COVID pandemic and bars are now ground zero for spread.

But the beer company wanted to remind us that, eventually, we’d all be able to see each other again.

And as it turns out, we were correct. The dog and horse were separated as well, but they were on similar paths.

The Clydesdale was out being a majestic Budweiser horse, but also somehow bounding down city streets and deserted beaches.

Meanwhile, the puppy was learning to run fast and be like his “Best Bud” back on the farm.

At least they still seemed to have a connection.

In the commercial “Reunited With Buds,” the beer company used footage from its 2014 commercial to give us some flashbacks to their friendship before eventually reuniting them.

Somehow the puppy is still a puppy, but we’re not questioning anything at this point.

Released in June and set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” it was meant to let us know nothing can stop true friendship.

And we hope by 2021, people finally figure out that if they really act like friends and stay distanced and masked up, we can all get back to our Superbowl parties a whole lot sooner.

Be sure to scroll down below, first to see “Puppy Love,” then to watch the 2020 “Reunited With Buds” commercial.

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Source: YouTube – Clevver News, YouTube – Budweiser, TODAY, Big Commerce, Washington Post