BATON ROUGE - A Baton Rouge man worked with the sheriff's office to track down his missing dogs after a litter of puppies and their mother went missing from his home.

The animals were taken Thursday from a home in the area of W Marsden Place. The victim says he was keeping the 10 pit bulls puppies in his shed along with their mother.

After the dogs went missing the victim sent messages to his neighbor asking them to alert him if anyone in the area was trying to sell pit bull puppies. A friend alerted him to a message someone had received from Eric Achane, who appeared to be selling the victim's dogs. The man said he knew Achane and that he lived next door to the suspect's family members.

While deputies were tracking down Achane, the victim posed as a potential buyer using a different phone number and set up an exchange for one of the dogs. The victim says Achane tried to sell one of the dogs for $1,200 but then lowered the price to $900.

When deputies found Achane, he claimed to know nothing of the theft and said he had no dogs.  Achane agreed to let the deputies look at his phone records, and they confirmed he was the one trying to sell the dogs to the owner earlier in the day.

Achane admitted to taking the dogs and claimed he only did so to support his ailing mother. Eight of the 10 puppies were found inside the Florida Boulevard apartment in a laundry basket, separated from their mother. Deputies said it did not appear Achane had been properly caring for the dogs. 

He was booked into the parish jail on theft and animal cruelty charges.