The lawyer for a Dakota County dog breeder says the puppies his client allegedly drowned were not pets. He maintains "commercial" animals are subject to a different set of rules than pets. Dayna Bell faces 14 felony and two misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.

A woman is facing 16 charges of animal cruelty after allegedly abusing and killing dogs at her business, Bell Kennels and Farm. The Pioneer Press reports three former employees report seeing Dayna Kristine Bell hurt animals.

Spring Lake Park police arrested a woman for animal cruelty after they say she threw three-week-old puppies at her boyfriend. Police say she threw the dogs out of a vehicle onto a parking lot pavement. They were uninjured. Police arrested the boyfriend, too, for allegedly breaking the woman's nose.

Four puppies are on their way to becoming service dogs thanks to the efforts of a Twin Cities program and the Federal Prison Camp in Duluth. Through the program Pawsitive Perspectives Assistance Dogs, or PawPADs, inmates will take two years to train the puppies in to disability dogs to help diabetics and the physically handicapped.

Can Do Canines is looking for volunteers to raise puppies in training to be assistance dogs. WCCO-TV says the organization will soon have three litters of puppies that will need homes and training for at least a year before the dogs are paired with someone with a disability.

An embattled dog breeder in New York Mills says she forfeited her license because she was 'sick to death of animal rights people.' Kathy Bauck says she never delivered dogs to a New York meat market, despite forms that say she did. Her business was at the center of a now discredited WCCO-TV report about dogs being sold for meat.