Strip away the press releases and the AKC-versus-Humane-Society fight over puppy-mill legislation comes down to a single, genuinely hard question: can one written standard be right for every dog in America, or does trying to write one inevitably do harm? The Humane Society of the United States says the answer is obvious and the American Kennel Club is hiding behind complexity to protect commercial breeders. The AKC says a 45-to-85-degree temperature rule that ignores the difference between a sled dog and a toy breed is exactly how well-meaning laws go wrong. Both can sound reasonable in isolation. The useful thing is to lay the actual disagreement side by side, because once you do, you can decide for yourself, and the bills are short enough to read in an afternoon.
The floor everyone is arguing above
For nearly sixty years, federal protection for commercially bred dogs has rested on a single statute: the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), signed in 1966. It sets minimum standards for how animals bred for sale, used in research, or exhibited are handled, housed, and transported. Critics consider that floor woefully low. The ASPCA notes that under current rules, USDA-licensed breeders can legally keep dogs in stacked, wire-floored cages for their entire lives and breed females on every heat cycle with no recovery.
The bigger scandal may be enforcement. A 2024 ASPCA analysis of USDA inspections found federal inspectors had documented more than 1,000 violations across over 400 commercial dog facilities, yet the agency took meaningful action against only four dealers. That gap, lots of violations, almost no consequences, is the backdrop for everything else.
The three bills, and where they stand now
Congress has tried to raise that floor with three bipartisan bills. All three lapsed with the last Congress and have been reintroduced in the 119th Congress (2025–2026), with new bill numbers but the same core aims:
- The Puppy Protection Act (now H.R. 2253) would expand the AWA’s standards for how commercial dealers house, exercise, feed, water, and provide veterinary care to dogs, and directs the USDA to issue final regulations within 18 months of enactment.
- The Better CARE for Animals Act (now H.R. 3112) would give the Department of Justice, not just the USDA, the authority to pursue enforcement, streamlining action in egregious abuse cases.
- Goldie’s Act (now H.R. 349) would force the USDA to document violations in detail during inspections and share those records with state and local law enforcement within 24 hours.
The Humane Society claims the AKC is actively working to keep all three from passing. The AKC says it is more complicated than that. Here is the heart of it.
The case the AKC makes
Sheila Goffe, the AKC’s vice president of government relations, told Pet Times the organization does not oppose these bills wholesale. Its objection is to “one-size-fits-all” language that, she argues, “does not allow for optimal outcomes for the broad range of breeds and dogs” and instead imposes “arbitrary, ‘feel-good’ requirements that are not fully vetted by the scientific community.”
Her go-to example is the Puppy Protection Act’s temperature rule, which requires enclosures to stay between 45 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit whenever dogs are present. That sounds humane, Goffe says, until you remember that “dogs that hunt, sled, detect explosives, or do other work and thrive in cooler temperatures, or that must be acclimated to cooler or warmer temperatures for their safety,” do not fit neatly inside it. She raises the same concern about a provision barring the breeding of females not “pre-screened by a veterinarian,” arguing the bill never specifies what the screening involves or who decides.
The AKC’s stated preference is enforcement over expansion. “Rather than expanding existing laws,” Goffe says, “we really need better enforcement of existing laws.” It is a coherent position, and it is one the Humane Society partly shares: both sides agree the current laws are under-enforced.
The case against the AKC
The Humane Society’s John Goodwin, who runs its Stop Puppy Mills campaign, finds the breed-by-breed objection unconvincing. “Could they name one breed that would be negatively affected by living in the temperature requirements that we spell out in that bill?” he asks. To him, the demand for infinite customization is itself the problem: “The AKC’s view that the law should be something other than one-size-fits-all would describe a regulatory nightmare. There needs to be one standard that works for all dogs and that everyone follows.”
His sharper question is procedural. If the AKC only objects to specific clauses, why oppose entire bills instead of asking sponsors to amend the language and then supporting the rest? Goodwin acknowledges he is aware of back-and-forth between the AKC and Rep. Fitzpatrick, the Puppy Protection Act’s sponsor, but the AKC’s posture, he argues, has been opposition rather than collaboration.
And on the AKC’s enforcement-first argument, Goodwin sees a contradiction. The Better CARE Act exists precisely to strengthen enforcement, by letting the DOJ step into the worst cases, “and yet the AKC is just as vigorously lobbying against that as well.” The AKC counters that Better CARE would shift authority “from an agency staffed by animal experts” to “one with little or no animal expertise that focuses on violations as potential federal crimes,” and could erode existing licensing exemptions for small hobby breeders.
Follow the money, both sides say
The state-level record complicates the AKC’s federal “we’re just refining the language” framing. Kathleen Schatzmann of the Animal Legal Defense Fund says that in statehouses, the AKC’s stance has been blunter: “What we’ve experienced certainly at the state level is opposition, full stop, to state retail sales bans in particular.”
Critics argue the motive is financial. The AKC’s largest revenue stream is dog registrations, and the Humane Society contends a meaningful share comes from “big players in the puppy mill industry and their pet store sales outlets, including Petland.” The AKC’s own 2023 annual report shows registrations and event fees accounted for $71.3 million in operating revenue, and even its event income depends on registered dogs.
The AKC pushes back hard. Goffe says fewer than 10 percent of breeders who register with the AKC produce more than six litters a year, so most are not high-volume commercial operations, and that the board members who set policy “tend to be folks from competitive sports” rather than breeders. Asked how much of the AKC’s funding comes from high-volume breeders, spokesperson Brandi Hunter Munden said the organization does “not break out our finances according to breeder volume” and called any suggestion that money drives its advocacy “a false narrative.”
It is worth noting where the licensing line actually falls, because it shapes who these bills touch. Per the AKC’s own materials, federal licensing kicks in for breeders with five or more breeding females who ship puppies sight-unseen to stores or sell online; small breeders who meet buyers face to face are exempt. The fight, in other words, is largely about the high-volume, ship-to-stores end of the business.
What you can actually do
You do not have to resolve the motives to act on the substance. The bills are short, plainly written, and public: the Puppy Protection Act, the Better CARE for Animals Act, and Goldie’s Act. Read the actual standards they would set, decide whether the AKC’s breed-by-breed worry strikes you as principled or convenient, and then call your representative and tell them where you land. On the one point everyone in this fight agrees on, that the laws already on the books are barely enforced, your voice is the part of the machinery that is not currently broken.
References
- “Text - H.R.2253 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Puppy Protection Act of 2025.” Congress.gov, congress.gov.
- “H.R.3112 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Better CARE for Animals Act of 2025.” Congress.gov, congress.gov.
- “H.R.349 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Goldie’s Act.” Congress.gov, congress.gov.
- “New ASPCA Report Shows USDA Failed to Act in Response to 90 Percent of Animal Welfare Violations.” ASPCA, aspca.org.
- “The American Kennel Club Is Actively Obstructing Stronger Protections for Dogs.” Humane World for Animals, 18 Sept. 2024, humaneworld.org.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Animal Welfare Act.” National Agricultural Library, nal.usda.gov.
- American Kennel Club. 2023 Annual Report, akc.org.
