There seems to be a tendency to lump all supporters of the Puppy Protection Act (PPA) into the camp of the PETA freaks. Sorry, it just isn't true. The primary sponsors of the PPA in both the US Senate and the US House are conservative Republicans.

The PPA is a proposed amendment to the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which is already existing federal law. Rather than only relying on what propagandists like AKC on the one side or PETA on the other side have to say about it, why don't you read the legislation for yourself?
The PPA is here:
http://www.theorator.com/bills107/s1478.html
The AWA is here:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/awa.htm
You can substitute the language of the PPA into the AWA as appropriate and see for yourself what this is about.

The PPA is aimed at puppy mills, not all dog breeders. The USDA's enforcement of the existing AWA act itself was challenged in court by the AR group DDAL. DDAL argued that USDA was too selective, and was not targeting all animal dealers specified under the AWA. The court agreed with the DDAL, though that decision may be appealed. So the AWA may be poorly worded. However, this is not the proposed PPA, it is the *existing* law in the AWA. If there is a problem in the wording in the AWA such that the scope of who it applies to is too broad, opposing or supporting the PPA doesn't address that issue. These are separate issues. So why doesn't AKC would put their considerable lobbying resources into pushing hard for an amendment to the AWA that properly limits this _existing_law_, rather than lobbying for the defeat of the proposed PPA? Perhaps because they know that the AWA as it stands now has had insufficient teeth to really affect their clients, the puppy mills, and the PPA clarifies and adds enforcement measures? As the PPA says about puppy mills:
"those facilities continue to operate despite repeated violations of the regulations cited by Department of Agriculture inspectors"

As far as the specifics in the PPA. I agree with others that the federal government should NOT be determining how America's dogs are socialized as puppies. Livestock guardian dogs require a different early socialization than other working dogs, who require a different early socialization than pets. But if the scope of the PPA is limited to puppy mills, then I don't see the problem. Puppy mills don't crank out working dogs, they crank out pets, and only pets.

Laura