A Dog Card is the individual digital record for a dog within Digital PawPrint.
Think of it as the dog’s own record that brings together its identity, breeding information, health history and important updates in one place.
Dog Cards can be created for your adult breeding dogs, stud dogs and puppies. When a puppy is created as part of a litter, its Dog Card can begin from birth and continue to develop as more information is added.
But the Dog Card does not necessarily end when the puppy leaves the breeder.
One of the key features of Digital PawPrint is that the record can be digitally transferred to the puppy’s new owner, allowing their new family or future carers to continue building the dog’s record.
A digital record that starts with the breeder
For breeders, the Dog Card provides a central place to keep important information about each dog.
Depending on the dog and the records available, this can include information such as:
- Identification details
- Microchip information
- Breed and registration details
- Dam and sire
- Date and information about birth
- Weight records
- Vaccinations
- Flea treatments
- Worming treatments
- Genetic and DNA testing
- Health information
- Notes and observations
- Photographs and information about the dog
Rather than having information spread between paper files, vaccination cards, spreadsheets and different systems, the Dog Card helps bring the dog’s records together.
Dog Cards connect your breeding records
Dog Cards are also used to create relationships between records within Digital PawPrint.
For example, an adult female can have her own Dog Card and later be selected as the dam when you create a litter.
The sire can also be connected to that litter.
The puppies created within the litter then have their own Dog Cards.
This means you are not simply creating a list of dogs. You are gradually building a connected history of your breeding programme.
The puppy’s record can continue after it leaves you
Traditionally, a breeder may give a puppy’s new owner a folder or puppy pack containing copies of health information, microchip details, feeding information and other records.
Digital PawPrint provides another option.
A puppy’s Dog Card can be transferred digitally to its new owner.
The new owner receives a record that has already been started by the breeder rather than having to begin again from scratch.
They can then continue updating their dog’s information as the puppy grows.
For example, they may later add:
- New vaccinations
- Flea treatments
- Worming treatments
- Weight records
- Changes to microchip information
- Other ongoing records
The Dog Card therefore has the potential to become much more than a record of the puppy’s first eight weeks.
It can become a continuing digital history of the dog.
What happens to the breeder’s record?
Transferring a Dog Card does not mean that the breeder loses their historical record. When the puppy is transferred, the breeder’s record is retained and archived.
This provides the breeder with a record of the puppy and the information that was held while it was in their care. The new owner receives the Dog Card that they can continue to maintain and update going forward.
The breeder retains the historical breeding record, while the dog’s future carer can continue building the ongoing record.
Helping new owners keep important records up to date
A digital Dog Card can also do things that a printed puppy pack cannot.
Digital PawPrint can help owners keep track of important information and provide alerts or prompts where records may need attention.
This can include checks relating to areas such as:
Registration information
Flea treatments
Microchip details
Instead of important information disappearing into a folder after the puppy arrives home, the Dog Card remains an active record that can continue to be checked and updated.
Creating a better handover between breeder and owner
The transfer of a puppy is an important point in its life.
The breeder may have accumulated weeks of information about that puppy before the new owner ever takes it home.
Digital PawPrint allows more of that information to travel with the dog.
Rather than the breeder’s record ending and the owner’s record beginning separately, the Dog Card creates a clearer handover between the two.
The breeder creates the foundations.
The new owner continues the record.
A useful record for future carers
Ownership and responsibility for a dog can change throughout its lifetime.
The long term aim of the Dog Card is to help important information remain connected to the dog rather than becoming fragmented as its circumstances change.
That could make the record useful not only to the original breeder and puppy buyer, but also to future carers who become responsible for the dog.
The more consistently the record is maintained, the more useful that history becomes.
Dog Cards for adult breeding dogs
Dog Cards are not only for puppies.
Your adult breeding dogs should also have their own records within Digital PawPrint.
This allows you to maintain their identification, breeding and health information while also connecting them with other areas of the system.
When you create a litter, for example, the relevant breeding dogs can be linked as the dam and sire rather than repeatedly entering their information.
This helps Digital PawPrint build relationships between your dogs, litters and individual puppy records.
The Dog Card grows with the dog
A Dog Card is not intended to be completed once and forgotten.
It should develop as the dog’s circumstances and records change.
A puppy may begin with relatively little information.
Over time, its card can accumulate identification details, health records, treatments, weight information and other updates.
For breeders, that creates a valuable record of the dogs within their breeding programme.
For puppy owners, it provides a record that can continue long after their puppy has left the breeder.
And for the dog, it means that important information has a better chance of remaining connected throughout its life.
Getting started
If you are new to Digital PawPrint, adding your adult breeding dogs is one of the first things we recommend doing.
If you are adding an existing adult dog, create the Dog Card through My Dogs.
If you are recording a new litter, create the litter through My Litters. Digital PawPrint can then create the individual puppy Dog Cards and connect them to the litter.
Once the Dog Card exists, you can begin adding the dog’s relevant information and building its digital record.