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At least one resident in Delano was upset when he saw a dead horse being dragged down Alcan Road onto Cardinal Road at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The horse, which had been cared for at the Grand Coulee Animal Rescue, died earlier in the day after at least two people active at the rescue had sat up with the horse most of the night.

Mel Hunt, former Grand Coulee police chief, now retired, said he and his wife, Joyce, were shocked to see a pickup pulling the dead white horse down the street.

According to a Grand Coulee police report, the horse was dragged onto West Cardinal Road and then through a fence line where it was left.

When interim police Chief John Tufts got to where the horse was, he found three individuals, Heather Downs, Glen Shear and Titus Horton.

Tufts was told that the trio had a trailer that they had planned to haul the dead horse in, but the trailer had a flat so they had to drag the animal to where it was left.

Heather Downs runs the animal shelter, which takes in horses that haven’t been regularly fed or have been mistreated, and some that are nearing the end of their days. The rescue tries to rehabilitate animals and find volunteers who agree to come to the shelter and work with the them.

Sophie was about 25 years old and suffering from siezures, so Downs figured she’d be a resident for a long time and had her own children working with the old horse, she said.

“When she passed away, I had her head in my lap,” she said.

She said Sophie would “go back to the land” in the field where she was taken, covered with branches.

“I loved that horse so much that if the ground wasn’t frozen, I would have taken the 12 hours to dig that hole,” Downs said, but she saw no alternative.

Hunt said that leaving the horse carcass where they did would only attract coyotes and maybe cause other problems in the area.

Tufts said the police report was sent on to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office since Delano is outside of Grand Coulee’s city limits and lies within the county.