Paperwork With Real Weight Behind It
A Dogue de Bordeaux puppy should come home with a signed contract, registry paperwork, a lineage of at least three generations, a complete litter veterinary record, and microchip documentation. The contract for a giant breed should be unusually specific: it should identify the puppy by sex, colour, and chip number, set out the health guarantee and return terms, and acknowledge practical realities such as the cost of feeding, insuring, and vetting a very large dog. A breeder who puts those realities in writing is screening owners as carefully as you are screening the breeder, and that is a good sign for the breed.
Heart, Hip, and Elbow Screening for a Giant
Both parents should have hip and elbow evaluations and a cardiac examination, with eye screening as well, and you should leave with copies that match the names on the lineage. Heart screening deserves particular attention in this breed, so ask whether the examination included listening alone or a more detailed scan, and note the answer in your folder. Also ask the breeder directly about breathing in the parents — how they cope with warmth and exercise — because a short-faced giant's comfort in summer is a welfare issue, not a quirk. Written honesty here matters more than polished sales talk.
The Growth Plan Is a Health Document
Few folders matter as much as the Dogue's feeding sheet. A mastiff puppy grows at a rate that punishes guesswork: too much food or the wrong balance can stress forming joints and the long bones of the legs. Expect written guidance on what the puppy eats now, portion sizes, meal frequency, and the breeder's expected weight milestones, plus exercise limits — steady, short outings rather than long forced marches or repeated stairs. The breeder's own litter weigh-ins should be in the record, giving your vet a growth curve to continue at the first visit and at every check afterwards.
Breathing, Skin Folds, and the Litter Vet's Entries
Read the final litter examination closely. For a Dogue it should cover heart sounds, breathing and nostrils, eyes and the skin folds of the face, bite, hernias, joints, and testicles in males. The care sheet should explain how the breeder cleans facial folds and dries them, how the puppy currently copes with warm rooms, and any snoring or noisy breathing the litter vet observed. None of this is about expecting perfection in a heavy, wrinkled breed; it is about starting ownership with an accurate picture, recorded while the breeder and vet still have the whole litter in front of them.
Filing for a Dog That Outgrows Every Drawer
Transfer the microchip and registry ownership straight away, and take the folder — especially the growth plan and heart screening — to your vet within the first few days. Keep every weigh-in, joint check, and insurance document in the same file, because a giant breed generates paperwork at the same scale it generates everything else. When a new vet, a holiday carer, or an insurer asks for history, you want to hand over one coherent record. Consolidated in KinsLe, the Pet Passport holds a Dogue de Bordeaux's lineage, parent screening, and growth records in one packet that stays manageable however large the dog becomes.