The gentle giant: The story of TTC’s garden pet

Shuffling around the horticulture garden at LBCC’s Trades Technology and Community campus is a steadily paced over 85-pound tortoise that goes by the name of Dozer, short for bulldozer, as he treads through flowers, bushes, and plants alike, making himself a staple of the horticulture garden for many.

This year marks Dozer’s third year of living inside the garden after a former horticulture student found him wandering around an alleyway in North Long Beach while conducting a survey of trees in the area.

Before arriving at the horticulture garden, Dozer was taken to a veterinarian clinic to check him for any possible trackers and any signs of harm he might have had. After being dismissed from the clinic, Dozer was offered to be kept in the care of the student who found him.

According to horticulture professor Jorge Ochoa, many announcements were sent out across different apps and chat groups to find Dozer’s original owners, however no one claimed the tortoise before he was asked to keep Dozer in the horticulture garden.

“Then they asked me, would you like a tortoise? I was expecting a tortoise. And then when he (student) came over and he was in the back of his truck, they were like, ” Can we borrow a cart? I was like, what do you mean a cart?” Ochoa said.

_{Dozer next to Horticulture professor, Jorge Ochoa, for size reference on May 7. Dozer is an 85-lb tortoise living in the TTC garden. The white circular attachment was placed on Dozer to attach an AirTag to prevent him from getting lost. Unfortunately, Dozer’s curiosity prompted him to knock it off, leaving the stucco paste on his shell. (Jayleen Vasquez)}

Despite Dozer’s seemingly calm demeanor, Ochoa was inspired to name him such based on the word “Bulldozer” because of his strength and speed, as tortoises are often known to have a slower pace and because of the way he tends to push things and people out of his way when walking around the horticulture garden. 

There was a noticeable difference in Dozer’s size after arriving at TTC, according to Ochoa, he is given some of the vegetables grown within the yard to supplement his diet, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, zucchinis and sometimes store-bought chayote squash are fed to Dozer by visitors and Ochoa.

Dozer is estimated to be about 25 years of age, referred to as a “youngster” by Ochoa, as tortoise species are estimated to live up to 50-100 years.

Ochoa says Dozer lives “rent-free” in a horticulture garden, as a pen was built and put up to serve as housing for him, although Dozer chose to make himself at home by digging his way under a shed, one of his talents and one of the ways students suspect a tortoise as big as Dozer ended up in the alley- by digging himself out of his previous home.

During last year’s program planning meeting with other LBCC faculty, where staff went over possible marketing plans and other ways to ensure student success, the idea of Dozer being the horticulture mascot was proposed. 

Word has spread to not only LBCC students but 4th graders in the area as well, every Friday they are seen getting off the bus just to walk with the “Giant Tortoise” stickers that were even created for the elementary students to take home and keep Dozer close to them.

“It’s amazing the number of students I see every single day come here and they come here just to see and say hi and kinda sit with him and talk to him and then just go to their classes, they’re happy and then come back tomorrow and the next day.” Ochoa added.

_{Dozer’s underground house entrance that he dug below a shack in LBCC TTC Horticulture garden taken on Thursday, May 7. (Jayleen Vasquez)}

The idolization of Dozer by students, visitors, and faculty added to the proposal of making the tortoise horticultures mascot.

“Then the idea of having him as our mascot so that we can have students kind of feel pride in him because students were telling me I love having him around, students will literally come in here to walk with him.” Ochoa said.

Students who graduate from the horticulture program receive a green stole with gold accents to represent completion. As the first program to introduce these representative stoles, Ochoa now plans to incorporate Dozer by adding the mascot to these stoles, further cementing his role as the heart of the program.

Dozer’s presence has also reached students who have not been in the horticulture garden themselves, with one student, Brianna Davila, a biology major at LBCC, noting she is aware of his existence and impact despite not having seen the gardens’ resident.

“As long as he is being well taken care of, I mean, from what I’ve heard, the space that he’s in benefits him a lot, even though I haven’t seen Dozer for myself, I’ve heard about him a lot through friends,” Davila said.

_{Dozer the tortoise walking around his home in Horticultures TTC garden, on May 7. Dozer is the first LBCC mascot created to represent the Horticulture programs students. (Jayleen Vasquez)}

For other students, Dozer’s presence is an unexpected part of visiting the horticulture garden. General business student Erycka Edwards recalled her first encounter with Dozer during an event held inside the garden.

 “We’ve only been here once before and we got to explore a little bit. We were also unsure of which parts non-horticulture students were allowed into, then when we were sitting down all of a sudden we seen the snapping turtle! Is it a snapping turtle or a tortoise? One of the two, he seemed very snappy to me, but huge.” Erycka said, adding, “It was very nice to see.”

Bustling about in the horticulture garden at Long Beach City College’s TTC campus, Dozer remains a student favorite. Visitors are welcomed to walk alongside him and share the quiet joy he brings to the program. 

Dozer offered no comments at the time of publication, he did however, take up an offer on a serving of fresh garden vegetables.