John McCulley Jr. starves elderly horse, drags across field by neck with roped tied to pickup, then shoots horse.

Jail time? Nah: “He’s sorry.”

Heartbreaking.

The second time Mr. McCulley, Jr., has been busted for abusing animals to the point where “abuse” doesn’t even account for the horror he’s visited upon these poor, feeling sentient beings.

Excerpt via the Denver Post:

A man who dragged an elderly and malnourished horse through a pasture with his pickup truck was sentenced Thursday to one year in jail for felony aggravated animal cruelty…

…McCulley tied a rope to the neck of a horse named Blue, connected the rope to his pickup and drove quickly out of a pasture north of his Arvada home in June 2009.

The horse was dragged at least 60 feet.

At the scene, Deputies found Blue lying on the ground on his right side. The horse was described as being “extremely emaciated,” with his left hip bone sticking out and his spine and ribs clearly visible…

…The weapons plea was the result of McCulley possessing a rifle, which he used to euthanize Blue as officers watched.

Deputy District Attorney Alexis King, who likened Blue’s condition to that of a victim of a concentration camp, asked Tidball to sentence McCulley to prison saying it “was the only appropriate sentence.”

Tidball declined, saying she thought McCulley was sorry.

Authorities also charged McCulley with 36 counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty in connection with his lack of care of 16 other horses who were seized in May 2009.

Many of those horses had been seized in a prior animal abuse case against McCully, in 2007.

…For the rest, go to the Denver Post.

Moral of the story?

Abuse leads to abuse.

We learn how not to control our temper by watching our parents. End the cycle. Breathe into those moments. As the Buddhists say, when anger fires your blood, make yourself as a piece of wood—don’t move. Walk out the door instead of confronting. Remember, in the case of animals, that pain doesn’t teach anything—they don’t understand anything except that you’re mad at them.

A search warrant wasn’t used in the 2007 case, and the horses taken at the time were returned to McCulley in 2008 in “healthy condition.”…for the rest, go to Denver Post.

An unrelated, but similar situation: