My name is Tracey Briggs, and I am proud to be sharing some of my story with you here. Let's see… how did I become a dog lover? It all began in a little town in Upstate New York, Corning to be exact. It is the city known for creating the cookware and dishes with the “little blue flower” on it. I was raised by a single mom who worked for Corning Glass Works for 38 years and by my grandmother who worked as a waitress and cook in a local restaurant.

During my childhood I had various pets, including three different hamsters. I bought each one with my allowance money; they would live to the ripe old age of about three and then heartbreakingly pass. In 1976 when I was a sophomore in high school, we gained the possession of a dog that my uncle, a NY State Police Officer, had acquired on a domestic violence call, a pup that needed re-homing to a safe and caring place. He brought the pure white, curly-furred pup to our house. We realized that this dog was the perfect match for three ladies, so we aptly named him Charlie. We were Charlie’s Angels. It was this little Bichon who helped me to develop the unconditional love, compassion, and unique bond that can be cultivated with a four-legged family member.

Jump ahead 24 years. In 2000, after returning from being stationed in Seoul, South Korea, my family and I settled at Scott AFB, Illinois, and went to seek our first family dog at the Animal Humane. We were unsure of what we would encounter, but that day we came home with our stray from East St. Louis, and we named him Buddy. Bud traveled the world with us, from Heidelberg, Germany, all over Europe, and to his last home in Seoul, South Korea, where he was introduced to Skooter.

Skooter was a pup that had been hit by a truck and left for dead on a roadside in Suwon, south of Seoul. After experimental surgery performed by a Korean Veterinary Dentist to replace his hips with metal plates bolted into his spine, he was fostered by my weightlifting partner Annie. She was a Physical Therapist for the US Army. She asked if I wanted to foster or adopt this little pup she called Roger, and I said, “No Way!” I had Buddy, who was deaf and blind and nearing the end of his 13-year life with us, and I had just taken a full-time job with the US Army Garrison-Yongsan as a Fitness Coordinator. Add to that my Army officer spouse deploying to Afghanistan and my middle son applying to nine different colleges including the US Military Academy at West Point, and I just couldn’t take on the responsibility of a paralyzed rescue pup too. Well, my friend Annie lived across the street from the gym where I worked. I would bring Korean kimbap over to her house and call Roger in my best Hangul. Slowly Roger would drag himself over to me, and as the days passed, I fell hard for this little guy. So, I took him home for a few hours to visit the kids. And then a few more hours the next week, and then finally after a few weeks, I called Annie and said, “We are adopting Roger”. My son and daughter renamed him Skooter with a “K” for Korea because he would scoot around on our terrazzo floors.

Annie taught me how to do doggie PT with a little inflatable peanut, and in seven months Skooter began walking on all four paws; the rest is history. We were a team, and we provided therapy dog service for UNM from 2016 until he passed in March of 2020.

In the months during Covid, the shelters were devoid of all rescues until June of 2020. In late June, I did a drive thru reservation to see what pups they had at Animal Humane of Albuquerque, and there was one little girl who had been found on the mesa in Roswell and had not been adopted because she would only attach to one human. She was so afraid that she would not come to me, but eventually she warmed up enough to let me pet her. We took ‘Susan’ home on a seven-day trial, and she became the newest addition to the family.

You know Susan as my little chocolate partner, Mocha Josephine, Mocha Jo for short. In the days that ensued after we brought her home, I worked diligently to teach her to go outside to potty, walk on a leash, and sit at the corner of every intersection. She learned quickly and even passed her High Desert Therapy Dog test, but it still took a bit of exposure training to have her trust me as her teammate and to overcome her innate fear of men. During the pandemic, we did window visits at Avamere Rehab Center, and it has been such a joy to witness how Mocha Jo has blossomed into this loving and amazing therapy dog. She knows when I put on my cargo pants that it means today is a “workday” for her, and she gets so excited! All over the UNM campus, from the Office of the Medical Investigator to Children’s Campus, she is building a name for herself just like Skooter did. I envision Mocha’s HDTD legacy to be as great as his was in the eyes of the grateful UNM faculty, staff, and students, for many years to come.