By Matt Guillermo, KESQ.com Digital Content Director
mguillermo@kesq.com

ANZA - A man who told authorities his horse was attacked by dogs was arrested after deputies found that the horse, instead, was beaten with a sledgehammer.

According to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, the horse's owner, Jack Ziniuk, called deputies Sunday afternoon to "put down" his horse, saying that it had been badly injured by attacking dogs and that it was suffering from seizures.

Deputies and Animal Control officers investigating the horse found that it had been struck several times in the head with a sledgehammer and, then, decapitated with a chainsaw.

Deputies later located the chainsaw and sledgehammer allegedly used. Investigators also found the horse's head which had been used to feed the man's dogs.

Ziniuk, 64, was arrested for animal cruelty and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside.