I think you can use --depth 1 in git pull too, so it gets just what’s needed for the newest commit in the repository.
I don’t know if the default behaviour is to pull everything missing, because my git help pull shows this option:
git pull --unshallow
or
git fetch --unshallow
–unshallow
Convert a shallow repository to a complete one, removing all the limitations imposed by shallow repositories.
I’m running git version 1.8.5.2 (Apple Git-48), and maybe this is some sort-of-new behaviour, and changing a bit between versions.