What a Boerboel Puppy Contract Should Include

What a Boerboel puppy contract is for

A Boerboel puppy contract should do four concrete things: define a written health guarantee that names exactly which conditions it covers and for how long, set a deposit and payment schedule with real dollar figures, state whether the puppy is placed as a pet or with breeding rights, and require the dog to come back to the breeder before it can ever be rehomed or surrendered. Get those four right and most of the rest is housekeeping.

The clause that matters most is also the one most often written to sound better than it is. A health guarantee is not a promise of a healthy dog. A contract that reads like one should make you more cautious, not less. What separates a real contract from a marketing PDF is whether each clause is specific enough that someone could actually enforce it.

What does a real health guarantee actually cover?

A good Boerboel health guarantee is narrow on purpose. Take one responsible breeder's publicly posted contract as an example: its guarantee runs about 24 months and covers only severe hip dysplasia, severe elbow dysplasia, crippling genetic defects, and severe cardiac conditions, with severity adjudicated by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) rather than by the breeder's opinion. It does not cover mild or moderate findings. And it states in writing that temperament and general genetic health are not guaranteed, because no honest breeder can promise those. The plain-language version of that sentence is close to "we can't guarantee it won't ever happen."

That narrowness is a feature. A guarantee that appears to cover "congenital and hereditary conditions" broadly is either unenforceable or so hedged it pays nothing, and it sets a false expectation on the one clause you are most likely to invoke. Read what is actually promised, in what grade, adjudicated by whom.

The conditions attached to the guarantee are just as load-bearing as the coverage. That same contract makes it your job to protect the claim: a vet check within about three business days of the puppy coming home, at least one recorded vet visit per year, and a necropsy required before any death claim is paid. The exclusions are equally explicit and equally reasonable. Parasites, kennel cough, and simple viral infections are excluded because they are common and treatable. So are owner-caused problems: overfeeding, over-exercise, rough play, accidents, bloat, and neglect. If a puppy's hips are wrecked because it was fed up to hit a growth chart and jogged before its plates closed, that is not the breeder's dysplasia to cover.

Why the joint clauses matter for this breed

Orthopedic coverage is not boilerplate for a Boerboel. In a study of more than 600,000 insured Swedish dogs, the Boerboel carried the highest relative risk of cranial cruciate ligament rupture of all 181 breeds examined (relative risk 11.0, Engdahl 2021). That is a relative risk built from a small number of cases with a wide confidence interval, not a prevalence, so it does not mean most Boerboels blow a knee. It does mean the breed's clearest single orthopedic signal points at the joints, which is exactly what a good guarantee and good parent testing are trying to hedge.

It also tells you what "severe" is doing in the coverage line. OFA grades hips Excellent, Good, Fair, then Borderline and three dysplastic grades (mild, moderate, severe). A guarantee that pays out only on severe is covering the worst grade, not a Fair hip that gives the dog trouble at eight. That is fine, as long as you know it going in and do not mistake the clause for a soundness warranty.

"Health tested" does not mean "healthy"

The old advice to "get copies of the parents' health-testing results" is right and incomplete. A CHIC number, or an OFA certificate, certifies that the testing was done and the result was made public. It does not certify that the result was good, and it says nothing about the puppy standing in front of you. A breeder can publish a Fair hip and a passing heart and be fully "health tested" while breeding a line you would rather avoid.

So the real ask is narrower: show me both parents' hip, elbow and heart results, not a certificate number and not one parent. Hips and elbows are screened by X-ray (OFA, PennHIP, BVA, or FCI), the heart by auscultation and echo. A consumer DNA kit can confirm the breed and flag a couple of recessive eye and urinary conditions, but no validated DNA test predicts hip or elbow dysplasia, which is polygenic and read off radiographs. If you want the full version of what to ask for, we walk through it in our health-testing guide and in Boerboel health testing explained.

Deposit, price, and payment terms

The deposit clause should carry actual numbers rather than the bare word "non-refundable." In the same breeder's contract the deposit is $500, applied to the total price, with the balance due roughly a week before the puppy goes home; amounts vary from one breeder to the next, which is one more reason they belong in writing. Whether that deposit comes back if you walk away, or if the breeder cannot deliver a puppy, is exactly the kind of thing the contract exists to settle in advance.

Judge the whole price against what it buys, because the number on its own tells you very little. Across the kennels we track, asking prices for Boerboel puppies cluster between roughly $2,500 and $3,500, inside a wider range of about $1,000 to $7,000. Price does not track quality at either end. A cheap puppy at $800 to $1,500 is usually not a bargain but a puppy whose breeder skipped the expensive parts: health testing, appraisal, a real contract, verified registration. In the other direction, poorly bred dogs have sold for well over $5,000 on social-media hype. We break the ranges down in the Boerboel price guide; the contract is where you check that the money is buying the paperwork.

Registration and breeding rights

"Registered" is doing more work in a contract than most buyers realize, and it means different things in different registries. Under SABBS, the South African statutory custodian of the breed, a dog on the breeding registers was physically appraised and scored, temperament included, and had to reach 75% before it was allowed to reproduce. Under the AKC or UKC, "registered" simply records the dog's lineage in a studbook, with no appraisal at all. Papers certify ancestry in one registry, nothing more, and no registry can make a breeder trustworthy. If the acronyms in your contract are a blur, our registries explainer sorts out who recognizes what.

The contract should state which registry the litter is recorded with and whether you are getting full or limited registration. A pet placement typically comes with a spay/neuter clause and limited papers; breeding rights are sold separately and cost more. A responsible breeding clause does more than raise the invoice. It should condition breeding on the same clearances the breeder used: no female bred before a set minimum age (16 months in the contract above), and hip, elbow and heart clearances from OFA or an equivalent scheme before either dog is bred.

The return clause is where a serious contract shows itself

A vague "take-back policy" is easy to write and easy to ignore. Look for the specific version. The dog comes back to the breeder first if you can no longer keep it. Any third-party rehoming requires the breeder's written consent. Surrendering the dog to a shelter is flatly forbidden. A strong contract can back this with teeth. The published model we have been following sets a $10,000 penalty if one of the breeder's dogs is later found in a shelter or found mistreated, states that the dog may not be kept crate- or kennel-only, and even fixes a minimum standard of housing: roughly 70 sq ft of climate-controlled indoor space per dog plus outdoor yard access. Those are one breeder's numbers, not an industry standard, but they show what a serious take-back clause can look like.

Those terms exist because a 150-pound guardian that ends up in a shelter is hard to place and easy to euthanize. A breeder who writes them in is telling you they intend to be reachable for the dog's whole life, which is the behavior you are actually shopping for. If the breeder will not take a dog back under any circumstances, that is the warning sign, not the penalty clause.

What the contract should say about the puppy itself

The contract should document the physical state the puppy leaves in, so there is no argument later. Expect it to record that the puppy is microchipped, has had its first 5-in-1 vaccine at about seven weeks (with two more boosters still due), and was wormed at roughly weeks two, four, six and eight. The registry birth certificate usually arrives two to three months after go-home, not on the day, so a contract that promises papers "at pickup" is either unusual or wrong.

One line deserves a second look: the tail. Every Boerboel is born with a full, natural tail. A docked tail is a cut made in the first few days of life, a working-farm tradition and a choice, not a breed trait, and docking for cosmetic reasons is banned across much of Europe under the 1987 European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals. Modern SABBS and AKC standards accept docked and natural tails alike, so if you have a preference, it belongs in the contract before the litter is born, not after. For everything else that happens in those first weeks, see bringing home a Boerboel puppy week by week.

What are the red flags in a Boerboel puppy contract?

Some red flags live in the contract, and some live in how the sale is run. A breeder who will not put anything in writing is the first. After that, watch the money. Never pay a deposit by gift card, wire, or cryptocurrency; those are the payment rails scammers use precisely because they cannot be reversed. "$800, registered, ready to ship today" is a scam script, not a listing, and the post-payment "shipping fee ransom," where a new charge appears after your deposit clears, is one of the oldest ones going. Before any money moves, confirm the breeder and the specific litter are real: a live video call defeats most scams, a registry lookup confirms the papers, and vet references confirm the dogs. We keep a running list of these patterns in how to spot a Boerboel scam.

A contract cannot make a bad breeder good. What it can do is force the important promises into writing, where you can read them twice and hold someone to them. If a breeder resists that, believe the resistance.