Good morning all! I decided to make Mochi a scrapbook.
Officially her name is Mochi Lee Queen. Lee is my bf's last name and since we aren't married when I registered her she had my last name. He wanted her to have his last name too so I made it her "middle" name.
She just turned 2 on September 4th. I       got her when she was 6 weeks old (which I realized too late that that was too early) and she has been the biggest blessing in my life.

Without further ado, I present to you the first pictures I ever saw of her that made me love her immediately.

Happy late birthday Mochi! Love puppy pictures.

We visited Mochi several times at the breeders place before we got to take her home with us. We visited at 3 weeks, 4 weeks and we took her home on our 6th week visit.
right before our 4th week visit I got a message from the breeder saying that Mochi got an infection so not to be alarmed when we see her. She had already had the vet come and take a look at her and got medicine for her. We weren't really prepared for how bad it was though.
The breeder told us it should be healed by the time it was time to take her home.
She was staying in a kennel outside (looked like a small barn) and there was a metal grate under the dirt. Mochi was digging there and it recently rained so there was some rust and her feet and tail got infected. That's the story we were told anyway. I'm not sure how much I believe it anymore but it is what it is.
Pictures from 4th week visit with her foot and tail infection

I found out by doing more research online that it's not recommended to get puppies from their mothers before 8 weeks right before we were about to get her at 6 weeks old. I thought about waiting to get her until 8 weeks but I still wanted to visit her. So we went to the breeders place and we found out all her brothers and sisters had already been taken by their new families and she was the only left. So I decided to take her home too. Her feet and tail hadn't healed yet and it didn't really look like they were getting better either. The breeder apologized and told me I should pick out a different puppy that I could take home after 2 weeks.
My heart was already set on Mochi. I already loved her, picked her name after meeting her, bought all her puppy supplies. There was no way I would leave without her. The breeder reluctantly let me take her but because she felt bad, she gave me $100 discount, which I didn't really want or care about. And I took Mochi home with me.

Because of her infection we had to give her medicated baths every 2 days for over a month after taking her home. We also had to spray her hairless areas twice a day until the hair was almost completely back.

A week later our friend brought his own husky puppy home!

Random pics of her growing up and our first Christmas together!

Really sweet pictures of a beautiful little girl

What a cute story. That dog is way too cute.

I don't what to say that hasn't been said already - yes, I do! As you said, typically it's best to leave the pups with their 'family' until they're eight weeks (or more) older. From your description of the 'breeders' place and the infection, it sounds to me that this little girl got lucky that she found two dedicated, loving parents to care for her! Hurray for you (and her!)

Yeah I definitely wish that I did more thorough research before I got her but no regrets because she has been the biggest blessing in my life, although it was very, very hard at times. She's more than worth all the time, effort, money and love we've put into raising her.
I was really disappointed with the breeder to say the least. While she was kind and kept us updated, I don't really feel like she was in it to better the breed or whatnot but instead to make money. She actually pushed everyone who bought from her to pick up their puppies at 6 weeks old. all her dogs are AKC registered so I put a lot of faith in her, but i won't ever buy from her again or recommend her to anyone.
Even though she's not really a rescue, I definitely feel like we rescued her from a life of living outside without love or human companionship. If we didn't get her she'd probably end up as another breeding machine until she was too old to do it anymore.

If your husband doesn't mind an idiot question, I went looking for the translation for Mochi and glosbe (and others) gave me 떡; now I know enough of the alphabet to know that that looks like "tyon" and it's only one syllable. So could I impose for a real translation? (( BTW, the giveaway was the Korean newspaper on the floor )) Mochi transliterates as 모 치 but I see no translation given ...

Haha he is still just my bf but we're working on the husband thing, haha!
I can answer this question for you though! Mochi is Japanese in origin for glutinous rice cake. 떡 (dduk) is Korean for glutinous rice cake. Basically she looks like the soy bean powder rice cakes from Japan so we named her Mochi. When I write her name in Korean I always wrote it as 모치 (literally mo-chi) but recently I found out it's more often written as 모찌 (mo-jji).
Picture for reference!

Wow, Gwen...such a lovely story of how you got your sweet and beautiful girl. And yep, i agree in a way you did rescue her, no breeder would allow a pup to get hurt, and not be living that way, so y'all were blessed to find each other. And also so very cool on explaining her name She is a beautiful dog, and she definitely looks like a Mochi <3

Thank you Gwen. I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut for a while, I have a bad habit of 'foot in mouth' disease at times.

And also thanks for the language lesson, I spent two years n Japan and 1.5 years in Korea - and if you'll excuse me, I didn't care for either variety of rice cakes. Almost anything else rice is great but they just didn't work right.

Aw what a cutie! They grow up too fast! Glad she has such loving owners who took her out of that breeder's situation!

Thank you Miya! I wish that breeder doesn't have any more litters but I never heard that she had bad reviews from anyone else except us.

Al, it's no problem! Happens all the time because we've been living together almost 4 years.
I know a lot of people don't prefer the taste of rice cake but I really like the texture haha. I think it's part of the reason I named her tha. My favorite Korean dish is spicy rice cakes.

Dev, thank you thank you! She's super photogenic. She always looks way better than we do in pictures

Few more pics of her in our everyday lives

she is adorable. love that shopping cart pic.

Gwen, I was one of the few GI's in my unit who liked KimChee - didn't make me the most popular fellow at times, but oh well, you either get used to the odor of kimchee or you don't.

One place I worked in Houston had a snack bar run by a couple of Koreans; I'd drop in for a sandwich at lunch and after I "sampled" all the various type of kimchee they had, they started just putting some on my plate with my order - didn't even have to ask.   Now, some of it's HOT! and some of it tends to cause a minor case of halitosis but I'm game for almost any / all of it

Sorry I was MIA for a while, work got very busy ):

Al, cucumber kimchi is my all time favorite! Cabbage kimchi has to be spicy and sour for me to want to eat it. I know a lot of people can't stand the smell haha

With one of her favorite toys, her hamburger. It doesn't squeak anymore because she chewed the side open and took out the squeaker.