Updated

A Michigan man who had hundreds of live and dead Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes in his home has been sentenced to five years of probation in a mental health program and ordered not to own animals.

At his sentencing hearing Tuesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, Kenneth Lang Jr. told Judge Timothy Kenny he loved the dogs like they were his children but knew he had too many of them.

The sentence had been expected as part of Lang's guilty plea last month to a single count of cruelty to 10 or more animals.

In July, authorities found Lang was hoarding the dogs. They say some dead dogs in freezers in the home may have been killed with an injection.