(CNN) A man has been sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted of putting an 8-month-old puppy in a cage and leaving it along the waterside.

Aaron Davis, 36, of Long Branch, New Jersey, was sentenced on Friday after a court found him guilty in December of fourth-degree animal cruelty, according to a news release from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office.

A judge also ordered him to pay $731.46 in restitution and perform 156 hours of community service, and banned him from owning pets while on parole. It was not immediately known how long his parole would last.

Davis has denied that he abandoned the puppy, defense attorney Adamo Ferreira told CNN. Ferreira argued that the sentence was unnecessarily harsh and said Davis planned to appeal his sentence.

"The sentence was overkill," Ferreira said. "There was no reason to sentence Mr. Davis to jail. It's a fourth-degree offense. This was his first indictable conviction."

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