Animal Cruelty? Shocking Photos Surface of Elderly Man Using Truck to Pull Horse

Animal cruelty or just farm life? Or something in between?

Pictures of an elderly man pulling his horse using his pickup truck in Connecticut has neighbors worried and the community gasping. But the owner says the pictures tell a more dramatic story than what happened.

"I was just trying to get her down in her stable for her breakfast and apples and so forth," 86-year-old Culver Modisette told WFSB. "No malicious intent."

The station says the police are now investigating:

Connecticut State Police have launched an investigation after neighbors in Stafford Springs complained a man pulled his horse behind his pickup truck with a rope.

Culver Modisette, the 86-year-old horse owner, told Channel 3 he's "not very familiar" with Annie his pure bred Arabian horse and meant no harm.

Irate neighbors said the horse could have died, but Modisette said the animal is currently in fine health.

Modisette said the horse got loose early Sunday morning, venturing to a neighbor's house next door in hopes of mating with the male horses there, he said.

"What else was I going to do?" asked Modisette. "I've got to bring her down, I can't leave her up there."

Modisette used a nylon strap to attach the horse to the back of his pickup truck.

The station also talked to the horse's veterinarian, who didn't go as far as to call the move animal cruelty:

"I regret that I put her on the back of the truck, that was a mistake, but what else was I going to do?" Modisette said. "She just about threw me across the woods when I tried to walk her down."

What do you think?

(H/T: Daily Mail)