What 'paperwork' would you expect for a puppy?

[popcornwizard]

Hell yes, it's a TAAT, but I've just watched the puppy farm 'dead in a week' clip on another thead, and it mentions one of the things to watch for is 'no paperwork'.

What paperwork would you expect with a pup? Mine came with nothing - should dogs now have some sort of passport style paperwork the same as horses/cattle etc? The dog we have now is the only one bought as a puppy, the others were rescue, got nothing but his collar and a bag of food for continuity. Have I missed something?

Definitely get a receipt from the breeder and the vet and microchip records. If the parents are KC registered ask to see the proof and obviously you should have the KC certificate if your pup is a pedigree.

I had the following:-

Chip documentation.

Vaccination card with chip number listed.

KC documentation.

Copies of dna results for the parents as they had been checked for hereditary conditions.

Signed contract.

By law, dogs must be microchipped by the time they are 8 weeks old, so as an absolute minimum they need to have their microchip in and the forms to transfer them from the breeder to you. If they are supposed to be pedigree, then you should have a copy of the KC registration for the parents and certificate for your pup.
Proper receipt from the breeder

My foster pups go with: details of worming/flea treatments and when they are next due. Vaccination certificate correctly filled out by vet with details of vaccine used and next due dates. Passport if they have one. Microchip details

Ah, I see. Mine was an 'accident' - hadn't seen a vet, had no chip or vaccination and came from someone that my father vaguely knew in the past so no receipt either. The horse passport thing past me by for quite sometime as we had a couple that never left the farm and I wondered if the same had happened with dogs.

We had

Vaccination card
Chip registration
Health check report from vet at 4 and 8 weeks
Recorded weight
Details of worming tablets given and date for next dose with yhe extra tablet
List of foods eaten
Details if 4 weeks run on insurance policy

I'd forgotten about the microchip thing.

Oh yes forgot that we also had 4 weeks free insurance and the next worming schedule.

Note, if you get a working dog with their tail docked you must have the official documentation from the vet that did it as well.

We had (before chips for puppies were a requirement)-

KC documentation
First vacc details
Certificate for one month’s insurance
Feeding/care sheet
Signed contract also setting out details of return to breeder and breeding endorsements
BAER hearing results

We had done our homework on the breeder who was a member of the breed club and had bred several champions over many years and so easily googled. We also met mum and all the siblings in the home a few times before pick up day.

We got:

KC documents.
Vaccination information (ours came to us at 12 weeks so had had all his jabs)
Lineage paperwork with health test results on parents and grandparents.
Microchip paperwork and number so we could register him to us.
A blanket with mum's smell and a bag of food for continuity.

We're still in touch with our breeder and have a Facebook group for all the people who've had pups from him in the past. We all still have our pups and all of us are still in touch and regularly share photos and get advice from each other, and our breeder is always on hand if we have any concerns or questions.

If the puppy comes with a passport it's something of a red flag if your dog is meant to be UK bred as it shows the dog has probably come from abroad. There's a lot of puppy smuggling that goes on - bringing in puppies that are too young from Eastern European puppy farms on dodgy documents. Of course not having a passport doesn't mean anything, but having a passport should be questioned as they're not free.

I should have said that the passport is only for the pups who have come from Ireland as the rescue there is so overwhelmed - I'd agree that a UK bred puppy wouldn't come with one as they are expensive and pup needs to be fully vaccinated to get one

I got a lot of paperwork!
-Health testing of parents; hips, eyes and breed specific genetic disorders that affect her breed.
-KC registration and form to change ownership
-Microchip details and form to change details
-Tattoo register
-Worming and vaccination schedule
-Advice notes on the breed
-Feeding notes
-Signed contract
-4 weeks free insurance

I don't know if I caused confusion with the 'passport' terminology. Cattle and horses have had individual identity documents referred to as 'passports' for quite sometime. I had completely forgotten about the requirement for pups to be chipped as it only happened a couple of years ago and wasn't a thing when we got our pup.

Buying a pup is tricky isn't it? Two of my friends have made bad choices in my opinion. One 'rescued' a pup from horrible conditions at a puppy farm (she bloody bought it to 'rescue' it, thus promoting trade). The other bought one from a 'respectable' puppy breeder that has a lovely facebook presence and groups for littermates to stay in touch etc etc. It posted 5 types of crossbreeds for sale in the first two weeks of November. When does a breeder become a puppy farmer?

A breeder becomes a puppy farmer when they value profit over the health and welfare of the pups.
This usually means no health tests for the parents, poor socialisation for the pups, no contract to take the puppy back if you can no longer care for it, no checks on the buyer's home or suitability for the breed, pups sold with fleas/worms/Kennel cough or worse, no microchip ( bearing in mind this is a legal requirement), multiple litters or back to back litters for a 'family pet'.....all for an inflated cash price.

I don't think all breeders of crosses are puppy farmers but I do think they're misguided at best and in it for the cash at worst. The only way I would get a cross is if it was through a rescue, or if a relative died or similar.

We paid £550 for ours and he is pure-bred beagle. My colleague got a labradoodle at the same time for £1200! Ours came with KC reg, health tested parents/grandparents, proof of lineage and KC names, microchip and vaccinations - his came with...nothing.

A breeder becomes a puppy farmer when they value profit over the health and welfare of the pups.

So by having 5 litters of say 5 pups and an income of £25000 in one month (and it's not just a single month that they do it), so maybe a turnover of more than £100,000 doesn't make a breeder into a 'farmer'? You can take as many photographs of puppies playing with kids in the house as you like, but caring for 25 pups is in my opinion a full time job and makes a full time income thus you're a puppy farmer, the same way as you're a sheep or pig farmer.

There are degrees of puppy farmers - those who run a purely commercial operation but who do keep the dogs in a good physical condition (so like most sheep/cattle farmers) through to those for whom the dogs are merely a money generating object. All are problematic in different ways - in the first if you accept that the pups won't be socialised at all and you'll have to work hard at it, plus inappropriate dogs are sold to families (a family of my acquaintance were sold a 'pomsky' when they had twins under 2 and were not an active family at all, with predictable consequences) its okish I guess

I think is about also checking the paperwork for obvious anomalies before you take the puppy away. From example I regularly see puppies bought from breeders on the South Coast or Cotswolds where the puppies vaccination certificate is from a vets practice in Wales. This should ring alarm bells.
The excellent breeders I work with provide
Vaccination certificate with microchip sticker
Microchip certificate and transfer document
KC registration document
Pedigree
Details of worming and flea treatment given
Details of food, how much and when given.
A blanket that has been in with the litter so the puppy has familiar smells to comfort it in it's new home.
A contract
A receipt.
Details of parents health checks

Puppy farms have been around for years. My first job as a 16 year old was to clean out kennels at a local farm back in the mid 1980s.
They had a 'respectable' kennel for the public.
But round the back, they had old sheds full of puppies, even some rooms in the house were full of puppies!
If a puppy was sick, it was put in isolation with no food or water. They wanted it to die! I got sacked for trying to help one.

I was such a stupid teenager back then, never thought of reporting them at the time.
But eventually, a local reporter busted them a few years later.

Makes me angry that they still operate a kennel to this day!

Tattoo register @SlothMama - what’s that?

I don't think anyone in the wider family has had any paperwork for our rescue dogs.

For Battendog (bought as a pup) I got similar to other folks:

• KC papers - the registration was changed in advance, I think (memory is a funny thing)
• Health results for parents
• Microchip details
• Worming and flea schedule
• Feeding notes and enough food for about a month
• 4 weeks free insurance
• Signed copy of the contract
• Receipt for payment (cash)
• A 'general tips' type sheet which had pointers on the breed, general healthcare advice and how to cope with the first few weeks of life with a springer pup.

@PlateOfBiscuits It's when a tattoo of numbers is tattooed into their ear it's another way of IDing a dog, and makes it less likely for a stolen dog to be sold on. My girls breeder has it done to all of the puppies she breeds :)