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As an animal lover, one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament pertains to this incident. It is as fresh and powerful today as it was millennia ago and tells us a lot about the heart of David and a lot about the culture of the time (some people loved animals even then).

The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this must die!
He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!
2 Samuel 2